I have a hard time believing it gets better.

We adopted a 4.5 month old untrained rescue in early September. For the first two months, I was barely eating, very high strung and crying all the time. I barely could shower.

We signed ourselves up for 1:1 training classes and I was determined to invest my time into working with her.

We managed to crate train and potty train her and teach her some very rudimentary basic commands. She’s hyper-stimulated outside and whatever we do, it never seems to be enough. In addition to that, she has had a hookworm infection her entire life. And she’s also picked up Giardia in the past month.

We’ve had her for 4 months now. Meds have not cleared the hookworm and we find out soon about the Giardia. We are desperate to get her into a puppy training/day program but are still waiting for her parasites and infections to clear.

I work from home and my mornings are spent trying to walk/train her, play and then calm her down. She’s CONSTANTLY bored. She will sleep in her kennel for up to an hour or two but if I’m in a meeting that goes longer she’ll bark or attack her bed. She will dig in the yard if unsupervised. I figured she wasn’t getting enough stimulation so she has every dog interactive toy under the sun. We train up to three times a day in quick bursts and gave at least two play sessions. My fiancé comes home and walks her. We continue with our trainer once a week, desensitizing currently while outside.

It isn’t enough. She is bored, she asks for attention.

My entire life revolves around her. My work performance has suffered. I barely take care of myself.

The trainer finally started asking if this type of behavior was “normal”. He suggested that she needs more to do with her brain, but I’m so maxed out already during the day trying to cater to her needs. I try to settle her but she won’t stay settled long enough and is now inclined to bark at noises outside the house after waking up in her kennel.

I have no idea what to do. My fiancé seems to think she needs more exercise, and that we should go hiking in the woods every morning. It’s pretty unrealistic for me to drive to a new trail every morning and hike with her. I try to do it at least 2-3 times during the work week and otherwise take her for a walk in the neighborhood (those days she’s less relaxed though). The only thing that helps us if we take her on a 3 hour hike every morning, but I can’t, and honestly don’t want to.

I wish she would be satisfied with multiple short walk training sessions, sniffing around on our 2 acre yard, playing, scavenger hunts, and some interactive toys, but it doesn’t seem to fulfill her.

After our trainer suggested we do things I’m already doing I drove home and cried. I thought I wasn’t giving her enough and it really sunk in that she’s just not getting her needs met. I’m so exhausted and stressed and I don’t really look forward to waking up the next day. I dread every morning I open my eyes in bed. I have no idea where to go from here. Things have gotten slightly better but I’m not sure how normal this is.