Grown Ups are not Puppies

So the neighbour just got a new puppy. I love puppies. Who doesn't?!

I love puppies the same way I love toddlers. For a while and only when I can give them back to people in charge of them. I never want to change a diaper again if I can help it. I never want to give the sofa yet another cleaning because something went wrong with all the fur-ball excitement.

Of course, the new puppy is beyond adorable. Right up to the point where it dashes over to our door like a furry lightning ball, loses its mind with excitement over "IT'S A DAY!!!!!" and pees on our doormat.

There is something about the doormat that attracts the puppy and then catapults it into a state of such elation, that it loses its shit. Or its pee. Or everything.

I have been thinking about a fence. Good fences make good neighbours and, what's more important, good fences make for fewer puppy incidents in front of the door.

Then again, putting up a whole fence just to keep a furry baby from having accidents in an inconvenient spot seems to be overkill. The puppy will grow out of it. At least I hope it will. It will learn manners over time and one day, the excitement of the world will perhaps not lead to spontaneous incontinence anymore.

Much like puppies, we can forgive toddlers and teenagers for their spontaneous outbursts even when the outbursts come at inconvenient times. "They'll learn to do better", we mumble, as we push the schoolbag out of the middle of the hallway and give the weird spot on the carpet one more cleaning.

Alas, at some point, people are neither toddlers, teenagers, nor puppies anymore.

That's when you need to start thinking about fences for real.

If grown-up puppies or people still have not learned how not to shit on your rug—both metaphorically and literally—there isn't much hope that they will grow out of it. What's more, if you keep cleaning up after them, all they will learn is that it is ok to leave smelly turds on your rug or in your mind. Cause hey, no biggie, you'll clean it up.

If someone keeps leaving their baggage with you, messing up your day, or dumping their "stuff they just need to vent about" on you and they don't stop when you tell them, get a fence. Get a fence even if they look at you with puppy eyes and whine softly. Make them wait by the door. Let them know that they are not welcome in your house (or your life) until they can keep their shit together.