Is it common for people to only brag about their perfect puppies?

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thegingersnap16

New member
I have a 6 month old puppy and I know two families with puppies (more or less the same age as him).

While I always openly point out on what are we working on with him (so we can share knowledge) or I joke around that he is an asshole or telling a story when he did a bad thing.. I always get from them "oh no, our puppy doesn't do that" and they just compliment him on how amazing he is. "he is great with dogs, with crowds, he doest hump, he doesn't pull, he doesn't have separation anxiety, he cuddles" etc.

I love my puppy and I don't want to compare. but is this normal?! Like I can't belive someone is that lucky and their puppy gives them 0 inconveniences whatsoever (like they bought a plant not a dog) while I work 24/7 with my dog and I think Idk.. I just got the realistic puppy life?! 🤷

Do you have similar experience with that?
I feel quite alone and can't relate to them at all, the only place I can actually see other people having struggles with their dogs is reddit 🙄
 
@thegingersnap16 Weird! Most puppy owners are willing to bitch about their furbabies in my experience lol.

Some puppies are easier than others though. It varies to a crazy degree. My dog was a really easy puppy. It wasn't like having a plant (is there a 30lb plant that you have to carry up and down 3 flights of stairs 10 times a day?) but we didn't deal with almost any of the common puppy issues.

I have worked with other puppies that really are hellhounds. Constant trouble finders. Most are in the middle. If you've never met a normal puppy, and only had an easy puppy, then you might actually have no idea how much work they can be lol. Which might be the case for your friends (or they are lying, or maybe it was so bad they repressed it and have puppy stockholme syndrome)
 
@xsmbthu3hoa I agree with this! My puppy is (was, now that she’s 2 years old) in hindsight an incredibly easy pup too! But it did take seeing a friend struggle with her puppy to realise.
 
@esperanza20 I wouldn't call my puppy "easy," but after seeing a woman at the dog park constantly correct and redirect her slightly older pup for an hour, I'm thankful that mine is comparatively more chill.

On the other hand, I'm sure she saw my pup lay down in the grass and refuse to walk on a leash and thought "at least I'm not dealing with that."

Everyone has their own struggles.
 
@xsmbthu3hoa exactly this! my first dog as an adult was an angel - as an 8wk old puppy he house trained on his third day home (?!), never chewed anything i didn’t give to him, was always unfailingly polite and wonderful

we fostered a puppy afterward and - demon. hard mode puppy. nightmare. i didn’t know how good i had it!!
 
@xsmbthu3hoa Lol this is so accurate for me. Honestly, in the grand scheme of things, our golden puppy is pretty easy. He was really easy to house train, crate train, learns really fast and is great off leash. But you won't hear me saying any of that when asked about him lol its "omg he's the devil incarnate. Pure chaos. Absolute disaster. Total jerk." Both things can be true at the same time haha
 
@xsmbthu3hoa One of my dogs chewed up a controller, mattress, backpack, and table leg before he figured it out, my other dog only ever chewed up one sock before he figured it out. I love them both, but I definitely have less stories about one of them.
 
@thegingersnap16 I feel like reading about puppies is sometimes like reading about children. Some of it is perspective, some of it is individual personality, and some of it is maintaining and illusion of the perfect life. Every puppy has strengths and weaknesses. Some people are more laid back than others. Some of us have dark senses of humor. I keep up with a few of my puppy’s littermates. I’m the only one who has raised a puppy before. One woman always referred to her puppy as “momma’s little cloud angel baby from heaven.” I do think that puppy was generally calmer than my puppy when he was younger. However cloud angel baby hit adolescence and it all fell apart in the sense that he suddenly became a normal teenage puppy. I have a very sarcastic sense of humor and my puppy has been kind of an asshole, so I’ve occasionally referred to him as momma’s little nightmare man. I definitely celebrate the good things, but I find people who are constantly perfect exhausting.
 
@pazuzil "momma's little cloud angel baby from heaven"? I'm sorry, that made me laugh! I too, have sarcasm issues. I didn't even think that about my children let alone our puppy. He was the "hound from hell". (And a couple expletives) Unfortunately, constantly perfect in my book translates to "wonder what they're hiding?"🤣🤣
 
@gvz I will admit I was kind of jealous of angel cloud baby when our puppies were younger. He was just more cuddly and calm than my puppy. I wondered what those folks had discussed with the breeder that made her place the calm puppy with them. At the same time they are retired, they don’t go out much, they had never had a puppy before. I had raised puppies, I was looking for an outgoing social dog to travel with, and wanted to be involved in dog communities. They’re now almost a year and a half and they’ve all had their highs and lows. Some puppies are just easier, my last one was. But puppyhood is short and perfect puppies may not have been trained to be amazing adults.
 
@pazuzil I envy good dogs, the angel babies. No lie. I look at those people with their dog sitting so nice in the front seat, enjoying the scenery while mine is chained in the back seat, playing Cujo to anything that moves. I want to roll down my window and say "be grateful and thankful for your beautiful, well behaved dog!!" But, I can't. I can only smile and give a little wave, longingly.
 
@pazuzil Haha, this is fitting to read after seeing a post someone made about how perfect their 6 month old puppy is and they can’t understand why no one else is talking about their perfect puppy (these threads do pop up from time to time, so it’s not an uncommon thought). I told them wait until adolescence hits and they said their dog will still be well behaved. 🤣 We either have different definitions of that, or they’re in for a rude reality check. Or they could very well just get lucky!

More often than not, I think people just deal with certain issues differently. For me, my dog being obsessed with other dogs is VERY stressful because they are everywhere in my neighborhood, plus I want to take him hiking off leash with me one day (99% of trails here are off leash) and I worry I won’t be able to because he wants to rudely play with every dog that he sees. For others who don’t have that goal or run into dogs less often, it’s probably not as big of a deal for them.

Another good example is a lady I met online who wanted to see my puppy. Her dog is always running around off leash on trails and dog parks, I’ve seen videos of them playing with other dogs and they seemed great. She said he was the perfect dog and always was, even as a puppy.

When we met, it was clear the dog had anxiety. He looked very nervous and snarled at my puppy the moment they made contact.

I no longer trust what people’s experiences are with puppies. Sure, maybe some have a “perfect” puppy, but it seems more likely that they either ignore/don’t care about the issues that they might have.
 
@beaudoiin Yeah I think everyone has different thresholds for different behaviors. I was visiting family over the weekend and stayed with cousins who told me to bring him. It’s been awhile since we’ve traveled so he was extra hyped, he barked a lot, and always ran to greet people at the door barking. I found it annoying and a lot of barking really sets my teeth on edge. I also wanted him well behaved so he would be invited back. It evidently didn’t bother them at all. I’m also a little more noise sensitive.

The only thing that bothers me about some of the hyper positivity posts in puppy groups is they either become toxically positive quickly or are done within the context of putting other people down. We can celebrate small victories or share the funny things puppies do without drawing attention to the fact that people who are struggling are bumming out people who aren’t.
 
@pazuzil I had the same thing with kids. Talking to other parents, I felt like I was the only one willing to admit my kids weren’t perfect. They would go on and on about their kids perfect GPAs, lives etc, when I know they were caught vaping at soccer camp because I was a chaperone.

I would try to break the ice and be like, oh, that’s awesome, my kid had a rough year, she is just big clicking with chemistry or whatever… nada. Oh well! So much pressure to be perfect. I’m not. My kids aren’t. But my puppy? He is 😂
 
@thegingersnap16 My puppy stole my shoe this morning and ran away with it. I'm so sleep deprived that I shouted, "Come back here, you fuckuppy." I meant to shout fucking puppy but here we are.
 
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