Okay I am in a very bad state of mind. Never posted on reddit but I'm in desperate need of support on this. I've seen threads for puppy regrets with first pup, but my problem with those is, this isn't. I rescued a puppy who's now a year and a half. He's my therapy dog, he helps me with absolutely everything from my mad panic attacks to my bad depressive episodes. He is literally the most sweet tempered and amazing dog I've ever come into contact with, and me and my boyfriend love him as much as we love each other. He is not a dog. He's family. Now I'll have to add background to this story for my emotions on this to be fully understood. Soon after getting him, my boyfriends sister rescued a Pitbull, because she fully believes in the fact that pit bulls are good or bad because of owner training, and I held that same belief (and still kind of do). However, the last time we were at her place, with her pit and her two other dogs, my dog was sniffing her pits cage, and one of the other dogs got in the way and the pit attacked and latched onto the other dog, doing a good number on her face. I started freaking out watching this happen, how territorial her dog got, and then started overthinking about what if it had been my dog. Now her other two dogs are very moody and the dog who got in the way had been having problems with the pit before, but it still left me shaken because my dog is so sweet, and wouldn't have defended himself if it had been him. Fast forward quite a few months and my boyfriend and I are noticing how long our work hours are, and how we are leaving our pup at home, and we feel bad because he loves playing with other dogs, and in the beginning of his life he grew up around tons of playmates. He loves us to death but we felt maybe it wasn't enough, and he needs a new sibling. So we attend an adoption place and get a boxer/lab mix, who seemed to have the exact same temperament of our first dog when we adopted him. But now I'm having a new kind of puppy anxiety. Not first dog, but second dog. My first pup is my life, he helps me through everything in my emotional rollercoaster, and I'm feeling like the lack of bond between the puppy and me and the puppy and my dog is really causing me to panic. I feel like the new puppy is intruding on my life. But the most anxiety I've had over it is there isn't really a guarantee our new pup isn't a boxer, but a pit. She looks uncannily like my boyfriends sisters pit, and last night, first day we brought her home, she got territorial of her cage and was correcting our dog. It brought all those feelings rushing back. That I'd never let anything happen to my dog and he would never feel the fear or get hurt like the other one did. But I also don't know how to correct them. I let my older dog correct her behavior when she tried to go after his bowl because that is his space. But then she went to correct him about her cage and I didn't know if I should correct her or not because she needs her space as well, but those feelings came rushing back and the situation and the look of her was so familiar it slapped me in the face. She is a sweet dog, and I don't think that even if there's a chance she's a pit that she's inherently bad, but I also want to protect my dog because it's day one and I'm overthinking "how is she going to turn out", " will they end up getting along" "will she come out of her shell and play with him because he wants to play", and I love my dog to death because I'm writing this and he's sensing my panic attacks and sitting with me. Sorry about the long post, there's so many conflicting emotions going on here. Thank you to anyone who responds it's a huge help.
