Nursing school is hard. There is no argument about that. But today I realized that it’s not just hard on me. Actually, my husband reminded me.
For the last couple of days, my dog’s behavior has been completely unacceptable. (Temper that statement with this: he’s got about $400 worth of obedience training under his belt, and was well-behaved enough to come to work with me and lay by my desk every day until I quit working in June, all before he turned one.) He’s driving me nuts; he has been a ball of pure energy, which is not unusual given his breed (German Shepherd) and his age (barely one, as of September.) I take him to the dog park every single day without fail, because without a half-hour to an hour’s worth of romping and fetching, well, I’ve just said that he’s totally unmanageable. But lately nothing seems to be enough.

Every once in awhile, it seems his behavior is still in the crapper, no matter how much exercise he’s getting. Now is one of those times. It’s not that he’s been overtly naughty. He has yet to sacrifice any of my furniture or drop a warm, steamy load on my carpet. Instead, he’s been whining incessantly, chasing the cats, and refusing to sleep at night. He had been sleeping in our room but last night I was up at least eight times due to his pacing, panting, whining, wandering, or what have you. So needless to say, tonight he’ll be back in his crate.

The other night, my husband posted a theorhetical question to me. He said “Suppose I offered you a billion dollars, and I actually had it; would you shoot the dog in the face?” (Don’t take this question too seriously, by the way. We are constantly quizzing each other on what we would and wouldn’t do for a billion dollars.) By then, the dog had not yet entered his most recent reign of terror, so I said no. However, this afternoon, as I drove him to the dog park, my husband asked me the same question and I suggested that he might want to lower his offer.

Then my husband made an awesome statement. He reminded me how hard my schedule is on the dog, who is primarily “my” dog for a variety of reasons, and is therefore much more sensitive to my schedule. While many humans prefer routines, in the wild, dogs need it for survival. They hunt and sleep by the light of the sun. Domesticated dogs like my little guy, aren’t much different. They are creatures of habit, and for the last few months, my dog has had almost no schedule. It’s gotten particularly bad since the second half of this semester started, and all my classes switched around, and will do so again in another week or two, due to clinicals. In my haste and complete frustration at his annoying behavor, I had forgotten this. My dog is finally reacting to not having a schedule, not knowing when he’s going to the park, or when he’s going to eat, or even when he’s going to sleep. Who can really blame him for his frustrating behavior?

Nursing school is hard; really hard. It takes its toll on even the strongest relationships. But, it’s also important that we, as nursing students, remember that we’re not the only ones being affected by the insanity that is nursing school, and oftentimes, the madness stretches beyond our immediate human family members, too.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 26th, 2007 at 3:57 pm and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.