Adding over to the feedback provided by other members. As a family do understand the importance of training your dog. And training requires a lot of commitment especially when it is your first one! To help you understand my point better, think about this. It's your first dog, so there are high chances that everyone in the family pets/cuddles him/her all day around and no one has trained the pup to be alone for say even 30 minutes, which in turn leads to separation anxiety. One fine day for whatever reason everyone decides to step out together leaving the dog alone inside the house. And the dog who has no idea what it means to be by itself, looses it's mind, worse becomes destructive! Another example, you don't train your dog to properly walk on a leash. The dog pulls, darts towards anything that catches his/her attention, jumps on people etc. There are so many other problems that can crop up if you do not train well or at all, and trust me they do! Experiences like these make for a bad ownership or worse a literal nightmare for few!
On a side note, I just realized that in all my previous posts I have only been talking about training. The importance of training is something I have learnt from experience. Long post ahead. (Mods please break in down if needed.) After having worked for some 3 years, I was going to leave within a year to pursue higher education. So, decided to get a dog as a companion for parents. Prior to that we have had all kinds of pets and were the go-to family for any kind of injured animals in the compound. He was a French Bulldog that just happened to us in a way. Someone I knew had bred their female, and I quickly chanced upon the opportunity. Very little was known about the breed itself in India back then. And as the common notion goes, we thought it's a small dog so my parents would be able to manage him. But this guy was a little dynamite! He had many funny names around in my area 'chota packett, bada dhamaka', 'chota don', 'chotu dada' etc. Later on, on my insistence my parents did work with a couple of trainers but it wasn't of much help. (Frankly, the quality of trainers was also really poor back then. All they knew was to toss some food, make the dog sit and call it obedience.) My parents gave him the best of the foods, supplements, accessories and medical care but also really spoilt him, he had no structure, no discipline! It would get really difficult for my parents at times to manage him. Never the less, he had a wonderful life but unfortunately passed away a couple years ago. Good training would have certainly helped here!
Moving on, here in NY it was COVID times and people were abandoning dogs like crazy. So, decided to foster one. This guy was rescued from some farm in Tennessee and had been in a high kill shelter for a some months now. I confirmed with this agency in NY and they arranged for his transport. I go there early in the morning to pick him up and in front of me is this beautiful adult Husky/GSD/Akita mix. During the hand over they simply tell me he is known to have some issues, so be a little careful. That's it! I bring him home and it's the usual charade, all excitement and baby talk around him! A couple days in, he completely decompresses and one fine day I get to see what they meant by "issues". This guy has no concept of what a leash is, hates every other dog he sees, has energy levels of an Olympic athlete, a prey drive of god knows what; anything that moves needs to be chased, literally even a piece of paper blown of some wind! I would return home with sprained wrists, locked up backs while trying to dodge, I think probably everything! I was told by the agency that there were some "potential adopters" in the pipeline and he would get adopted in say a month at max. And 4 months down the line, after being rejected by countless "potential adopters" I get a call from the agency that we might have to send him back to the shelter where he came from as there are hundreds of abandoned dogs pouring in from different states in NY and they have so they have to wisely use their resources. I just casually ask them, what happens when he goes back? To which they say, they don't know, they might even put him down! That is when I decided to foster fail! In the beginning there were times when I would have 2 of friends space-out in the hallway, who would call to inform we are clear to takeoff, and takeoff we would! I worked with a lot of trainers, which costed me a lot of money. I have worked with trainers charging $75/hr to $500/hr, and of course it always has to be the most expensive thing that clicks! But after all of this, this 70 lbs of brute strength has finally been tamed and now even lives with another dog! And all of this was achieved by good and most importantly consistent training! I had to make a lot of changes to my lifestyle to be able to match up to his energy, which actually has made me much healthier! And NO, I do not baby talk or cuddle him anymore, but also am not all militant on him! Remember, they are a different specie, they are not humans. Hope this helps you better understand what it is like living with a dog. Attaching a couple of photos, now that I have spoken so much about them.