One of those weekends...

There are times when I wonder if I did the right thing for either of us when I adopted Bella.

She is beautiful. She is gentle. And she can drive me insane.

I feel housebound and long to travel again. But how can I leave her when she is afraid of everyone (so far the only exception is Jade)? How can I ever traumatise her more by putting her in kennels?

She has regressed badly the past two weeks. I thought we had got past the submissive peeing of the first month, but it has returned.

This morning, she peed on the carpet and peed on her bed. Why? Because for the past two days, she has been afraid of her lead/leash. Why? Who the heck knows. Somehow the sight and sound of me picking up her leash--which just last week made her all happy and excited--has turned into something to cower from. Once she is attached and outside, she is fine, walks well, chases voles (saw one this morning, at least she was not afraid of the vole, and she saw little Sandy, she is not afraid of Sandy either), sniffs everywhere, walks fine on the lead, stops and sits when told. But it's the time between me picking up the lead and her being connected to it. She crawls away and becomes more and more afraid.... and then has an accident.

This morning I fell part down the stairs as I turned so as not to make her more scared than she already was. And out walking, I stumbled over her head when she flinched from something--maybe a fly? --and stuck herself in front of me as we were walking. (How did you injure yourself? Karate? No... I tripped over my Great Dane's nose...)

My lawn is destroyed. OK it wasn't much of a lawn anyway, all weeds and hollows and general not-a-good-lawn, but now it is just brown circles all conspiring to merge together and become on dead desert. I have no idea how to get her to do her business anywhere else. Have tried everything I can think of, including sneaking dirt-from-my-lawn around the neigborhood verges, but nothing works. I have failed miserably.

She is beautiful and I have always wanted a Great Dane. And I think she likes me--a lot. But it feels that it's because she needs to hide behind me, rather than be a friend.

I wish her previous owners had told me about all her problems before I took her. They didn't. And that makes me wonder if it's lifelong problems with Bella, or a problem with me.

There. I've said it.

Maybe tomorrow will be better.