peeing on the floor

as i let my dogs out (two amazing pomeranians), i realized how good they had been lately. the one thing i am not proud of is that i have sometimes let my aggravation or anger be vented towards my dogs. by that i mean... jasper would urinate somewhere in the house, i would get aggravated by having to clean it up, and i would swat his bottom and he would go hide. this did not happen very often because i would realize it was not his fault. he has a small bladder and can't seem to help it. sometimes though, i would allow it to get the best of me and i would yell at him. generally it was because of stress about work or my personal life. regardless, i am not proud of this. it surprised me to notice our other dog would cower as if he were in trouble. sometimes i would yell at him too. i realized my anger was not understood by them and i was allowing stress to flood into other areas of my life.

the whole thing caused me to pause and reflect. what was i doing that was helpful here? i was allowing something to go unaddressed which was causing other problems. it is so easy to cope by yelling or getting angry. it is more of a challenge to deal with the situation. for the last 4 weeks, since we have been travelling all over, jasper (the one with the bladder problem) been amazing. he seems to have associated guilt with peeing and now we have not been so stressed and letting him out every 3 hours, he is doing well. we have been under incredible stress lately and i was not sure why i have been so different. the thing i realized is i have been dealing with the things that have been causing me aggravation head on. i have been correctly channeling my emotions and resolving them.