Am I responsible enough?

I just got a dog on Monday. He is beautiful. He is a 10 month old purebred Border Collie that is grey, black, and white. He is an excellent cuddler. But he is mischievous and likes to get into food stuff. My spouse keeps telling me that I am not responsible enough. With a 17 year difference in our age, she might be right, in her eyes. But I would like to analyze responsibility and how I measure up.

Oxford defines responsibility as, “the state or fact of having a duty to deal with something or of having control over someone”. I understand the duty to deal with something, but the control over someone? I believe in respecting autonomy. That part of the way they define it bothers me. Just a weird side note. As for the duty, I think I have a good sense of duty. Duty, like everything else in life, involves habits. I believe in developing my thought and action habits. By developing them, I can know that I am a good person now and I will continue to be good in the future.

What habits have I been developing since 5 days ago since I got the dog? I have been waking up super early. I wake up at 4am to take him out, feed, and go for a walk. I get ready for work. He gives me the cutest, “please don’t go” every single time I put on my socks. I come home for lunch and go out and play with him for awhile. He gets alot of exercise with us. He is always so pooped when we get home.

I’ve decided to walk him on half the days and run the other half. The walking is at my pace. I am training him not to pull so that my spouse can take him out without being dragged. Her back issues can’t take it. On run days, I go at his walking pace. I can keep up for a good 45 minute before I tire out. But I’m sure with time I’ll be able to out-run him. At night, I clean up around the house so that he cannot reach anything. These past 5 days he has been too tired to shred things like his previous owner complained about. Just in case, everything is tidy.

I need to add training time. My training stake just came in today from Amazon. I will teach him the basics first. He already sits very well but does not stay. I also need to show him how to heel and lay down. It’s like programming a computer. Just gotta be consistent and speak the language.

Looking towards the future, these are habits I will keep and add to. I look at stuff not just for today but for tomorrow too. I am responsible enough.