There are plans and then there is reality.

Today I had a good laugh at myself. A few months ago I thought pet ownership was crazy. Now we own two puppies and I am besotted with them.

I thought that doggy daycare was the most ridiculous idea I had ever heard of. Now our pups are going to doggy daycare when we can't be home to take them on potty breaks.

I was insistent that our dogs were going to eat a raw meaty bones diet because that was closest to their natural diet. Less than two days into the feeding plan, my fear of E.Coli and Salmonella got the better of me and we switched to a commercial dog food. I put a plastic tray down on the floor, gave the pups their chicken and then watched them ignore my plastic tray and pull their raw chicken around the floor. I had visions of having to Chlorox the floor 3 times a day and it all became too much for me. I even had nightmares of giant E. Coli attacking us. That put a speedy end to raw food in the pups' diet.

Potty training was a joke. The first week of puppy ownership was more stressful and more sleep depriving than the first week of twin infants. I hated parenting infants and if I found that easier, you have to know how tough I found puppies. I finally gave it all up as a bad job and found a dog trainer who holds puppy potty training boot camps.

Lisa was a wonder. She took two puppies who had trained me to take them potty around once an hour at night and a week later gave us pups who slept through the night. Archie who is now 13 weeks, goes potty at around 9 or 10pm and can hold it until 7am. Hershey needs to go potty at 4:30am. We're busy adding 5 min per day until she reaches 7am.

We now have a schedule and puppies who are crate trained. They are too young to be considered potty trained, but I now know what I am doing and we don't have puppy accidents in the house.

It's amazing how much more enjoyable the puppies are now that someone has told us what to do, how to do it and when to do it.