Harmoney was a stay who had been in a shelter and wasn’t sure of people or life. 

Gia was someone completely different.
We wanted to give Gia the best life she deserves, we had a plan to do that. What we didn’t know at the time, but know now. You can still give your new pup a new life and the best life, without giving them everything at once.

Freedom = chaos.

Which is what we learnt, the second night we had her we left her for a couple hours, she had the bedroom and outside access as we had planned for her to live her new best life. Which was too much, for starters she didn’t know us. Sure she was starting to understand we were her parents. But she didn’t truly know us in the way dogs respect their owners. That is built over time. And because of this, she destroyed quiet a few things. We put it down to nerves of being left alone for the first time, so when it was due for me to go back to work and she was alone for a couple hours and she destroyed more stuff, but more important stuff. We knew she couldn’t be trusted in the bedroom.
but this wasn’t a forever thing. It was a she wasn’t sure of us so of course she was going to destroy our stuff. Its like a test, were we going to abandon her. Not a chance.

Dog training helped her gain a bond with us and set clear boundaries outside of the house, in areas she thought she had control she had to learn that she wasn’t a stay anymore and she had to listen. She had to walk with us, not run away.
It was hard for us to get her into dog training though as most places we looked only took puppies, not older dogs too. We finally found one recommended by a vet who took any age, and we are so thankful because after her 6 weeks she is a completely different dog. She knows we respect her so she respects us. She is better at walking on and off lead. Her confidence with people and dogs has grown. She is more independent and all round happier.
Dog training didn’t just teach us how to train her, it taught us to see what helps calm her down, what she likes. And use that, for example Gia would prefer to lie down than sit. It helps calm her down. So that’s what we do. If shes playing up, being naughty, we put her in a down and we wait. And when we go again shes calmer and thinking the steps through.

I regret giving her too much at the beginning, I wish I had known. But I never blamed her. It shocks me now that we can leave our house without closing all the doors to all the rooms and we can still come home and nothing will be destroyed anymore. Although we still do our walks and checks and see, we end up stood there staring at this dog and going ‘how are you the same do that was destroying everything in sight only 3 months ago?!?’

And its simply because we learnt, we learnt the approach we were doing was wrong. And sure she still has slip ups, shes actually very naughty and she knows it. But she respects us too much now to go and do it just because. But also she knows if she did, we would be taking the privilege away from her again until she earns it back.

 

Guilt is big within rescuing dogs, you worry you’re being too harsh on them. That they might resent you because they’ve already been through a lot and you just want to make them safe and happy. But you can do that with boundaries too. Its okay to tell your dog off, as long as you give them all the love when they do the right thing.

 Guest lists are something you have to work out first, mainly because venues have a capacity depending if you’re doing cocktail style or sit down meal. So you need to know if the venue your even looking at is going to accommodate the people you want to celebrate with. 

We got asked why we were doing a guest list so early when our plan to be wed wasn’t for another two years.
Now we know numbers will change, people will probably change but we did it off if we were sending out our invites tomorrow. This gave us an idea of what our round up number would be and can base venues and budging off that max number.

For us its 90. Mainly because the first venue we looked at caters only to 90pax. But also to keep costs down.
But deciding who those 90 people would be was hard. We wrote a list of the definite yes, but the most important questions were, have we spoke to them in the past year? No. not invited.
Are they a good vibe? No. Not invited.

When there’s drama or issues around people who like your future husband but are not very nice to you were hard. We had to discuss how to address these as I knew I wasn’t wanting anyone who would just come to our wedding to talk badly about myself, but hug and congratulate me to be there. Which was why our main motto is, do they bring good vibes.

Being on a facebook wedding discussion has been so helpful as well. Honestly, facebook groups slap hard! I thought they were just for older people etc but the wedding ones are a must if you are engaged. The community, the questions, the recommendations not only help you feel less alone in your issues but open you up to ideas you never thought of.

A lot of people have problems when it comes to invites and how to not invite people. And we are choosing to invite some people In a household and not others so learning how to word that through others that have done the same is super helpful.
But the biggest piece of advise that is shared constantly is that it is your wedding! So although there might be opinions from others that you have to invite this person because of this reason. If it doesn’t sit well with you, say no.
Its okay. This is yours and your future husbands or wives day. And my most important piece of advise is unless the person telling you this other person should be there is paying for the extra guest that wont bring you good vibes, then it’s a no.

Don’t be scared to say no. Yes there might be backlash and drama, but just think on the day when you are stood saying your vows surrounded by people you love, it all wont matter.

 Back in the day I would put up book reviews on youtube, I loved doing it and I kind of miss it. But times have changed since then and I started noticing there was this think called ‘bookstagrammers’ and boy do they scare me! 

As much as I would love to be involved in the world, and I do try. I do the tags, I do the hashtags I follow and get inspo for reads and posts because there’s nothing more I would love is to be on a publishers reading copy list!

But the reality is, I work full time, I have a relationship and a dog. And although I adore reading, I have other hobbies too so I cant spend my whole day curled up on the couch reading. And Ill admit, I’m not that fast of a reader. Although I try my best.

But there’s nothing I feel more discouraged by than when I hop onto Instagram, click through stories and see bookstagrammers complaining they’ve only read 3 books this month. 3!! I aim for 1 a month to keep me reading, but for some people this isn’t even considered worthy enough to call myself a reader.

We forget that although the world is still out there shaming others on Instagram for their size, hair colour, followers, pose etc. We forget that although the book community that is considered safe and inclusive and for the most part it is! Ive found some great bookstagram accounts that give great content and respond to everyone and just enjoy reading in general.
But I think its important to remember that there is also those out there that, most likely unintentionally, making some of us feel like we are failing in the community by not reading enough, not reading long enough, not reading fast enough. Which takes the beauty out of why we pick up a book in the first place.

I might not read the most, and only aim for 12 books a year so that I don’t feel like reading is a chore, but ill still post my book reviews, still post my book photos on my Instagram. Tag the published, and hope that hey one day I may get sent a reading copy. And ill read it how I like and feel no pressure.

So if you want to see a normal gal, just trying to read books in life with no pressure other than reading is my happy place and keeps me sane. Follow me and we can do this little book community thing together, just me, you and our to be read list!