u/Familiar-Tea-8774

I really need support from people who have gone through the difficult puppy stage, because I feel like I am failing my dog and I’m honestly worried that the bond I had with her is gone forever.

She’s a rescue that we think is a GSD/Husky mix, born around October 2025, so she’ll be about 7 months old at the end of this month. She is insanely smart, almost too smart sometimes. She absolutely knows when she’s doing something she shouldn’t. For example, she’ll grab something she knows she’s not allowed to have, I’ll take it away, and then she’ll literally wait until I turn around and immediately go for it again.

I feel like our entire day revolves around managing her behaviour, which I knew would be the case with a puppy, but she has things to entertain herself, and she just will not, not even for a moment. We have had to tether her outside and inside the house at times because if she isn’t getting the exact attention she wants, she starts causing chaos to force interaction. And the thing is, it’s not like she’s ignored. My husband works from home, she gets walks, outside time, training, toys, chews, attention, affection, enrichment… but if I do something normal like try to cook dinner or focus on something else, she gets frustrated and starts acting out. She sleeps from 9:00pm - 6/7am. She will be let out, fed, interacton etc then put back to bed around 8:00-9:00am. She will sleep till 2:00pm and be the sweetest dog for about 30 minutes, and then she is choas. She will go back to sleep 4:00pm until 5:30pm and then she is anxious and is a mess until bed time again.

When she’s really worked up or not getting her way, she’ll start nipping at me or even at our other rescue, who is a tiny 15-year-old dog. She also cannot settle herself at all. The only way she sleeps is if we enforce naps in the crate, otherwise she just spirals into overstimulation and bad behaviour.

Everyone keeps telling me “she’ll calm down eventually,” “wait until she’s older,” “maybe after she’s spayed,” “maybe after a year,” etc. But I’m terrified this is just who she’s going to be and that I’m somehow ruining her or creating habits we’ll never recover from.

I did love her, but I am exhausted now, and that bond is almost non existent now. I feel anxious all the time, like I can never relax because I’m constantly waiting for the next thing she’s going to do. My soul dog died in March 2025 and she was perfect in everyway. She was never this hard to deal with as a puppy. I know this is a different dog, and I should not compare, but I do not know what to do anymore, and I regret getting her. Maybe it was too soon after my other dog died, I am not sure but at this point I am just going through everyday surviving and trying to get through it.

Has anyone else gone through this with a high-energy/intense puppy, especially shepherd or husky mixes? Did things genuinely improve? What actually helped? I really need honesty, support, and advice right now because I feel like I’m drowning a bit.

My husband has been dealing with something that honestly breaks my heart to watch, and I’m trying to figure out how to support him without making things worse.

Before his grandparents passed, there were always comments from family even prior to that about how he would be “taken care of” one day. Nobody ever promised specific amounts, but there was definitely an understanding that they wanted certain things divided fairly and intentionally.

Now that the estate process is moving forward, there’s very little communication, details seem to change depending on who he talks to (he has found out lies), and a lot of decisions are happening behind closed doors. The people handling everything are interpreting parts of the estate in ways that seem very different from what his grandparents intended, and it feels like money and self-interest are taking the place of honouring what the grandparents wanted for my husband in the will and they are doing everything they possibly can to minimize what is considered "the estate" so my husbands portion continues to get smaller and smaller, and theirs grows.

What hurts most is watching him slowly realize that people he trusted deeply do not have his best interests at heart. He’s trying hard to avoid conflict because he doesn’t want to destroy family relationships, but I can tell it’s weighing heavily on him emotionally. He keeps wondering if he’s overreacting, even though from the outside it really seems like he’s being dismissed and manipulated.

I know this isn’t my fight, and it is not my place to step into the legal or family side of things directly. But as his wife, it’s painful to watch someone I love feel hurt and disappointed by people he cared about and trusted for most of his life.

For those who’ve gone through family estate disputes, what actually helped you feel supported by your spouse or partner? Did you want encouragement to push harder, or mostly just emotional support and someone to listen?

For people familiar with estate law or beneficiary rights:

• What level of transparency are beneficiaries typically entitled to during estate administration?
• Are beneficiaries generally allowed to request a formal accounting of estate assets and distributions?
• At what point is it reasonable to consult an estate lawyer if there are concerns about conflicts of interest or mismanagement?
• Is it common for executors to exclude beneficiaries from details until everything is finalized?

I want to help him in the right way without adding more stress or making him feel pressured.