I’m worried I’ll become the kind of over-indulgent, uber-protective, anxiety ridden helicopter parent that I abhor. (I’ve agonized over the decision on this very blog.) And my hesitation stems, in part, from deep-seated concerns that I won’t be a good mom. My husband and I are still undecided about whether to have a baby. What worries me is that I might behave the exact same way with a human child. But it doesn’t really matter much if you indulge a puppy. And the end result is, of course, totally adorable. Rather than giving the dog a few weeks to get used to her crate, I let my anxieties get the best of me. Lately, I find myself fixating on what Snuggle Puppy represents: namely, my inclination to overparent. Snuggle Puppy’s impact on our family has been overwhelmingly positive. With each passing night the dog whined less and less until she wasn’t making any noise at all. The heartbeat was audible even at a distance. We opened the Velcro cavity in her sternum, removed her red plastic heart, and switched it on. I was buying peace of mind and (potentially) a good night’s sleep.įour days later, Snuggle Puppy arrived. The price tag was a tad hefty for a dog toy - $39.95 - but I wasn’t just buying a toy. And there I found “ Snuggle Puppies Behavioral Aid Toy for Pets,” a stuffed hound with a “new and improved” plastic heart designed to produce a “real feel” heartbeat. I turned to the almighty online purveyor of everything - Amazon. So when a friend mentioned that a toy with a beating heart might calm her down, I didn’t even chuckle at the ridiculousness of the suggestion. And the more I read, the more certain I became that this was somehow our fault. I scanned online puppy forums, studiously reading even the most cockamamie suggestions.

Even earplugs couldn’t muffle the sounds of her discontent. She tried every noise in her puppy arsenal. And then she would howl, and then yowl, and then cry, and then bark. At night she made ear-shattering noises that sounded like human screams. The dog hadn’t taken to being in a kennel the way we hoped she would.

I was in puppy heaven.Ī week later we were in puppy hell. As she snuggled into my lap on the long car ride home, I looked over at my husband and sighed.

But this one was a real looker - speckled paws, cockeyed ears, and seal-pup eyes. All puppies make me go weak in the knees. We had our hearts set on a black lab mutt, and I had found the perfect one. In late March, my husband and I decided to adopt a puppy.

Snuggle puppy book