My lifelong dream, or my dream for the 20 years I've been alive, has always been to have a dog. I've begged and whined and even made PowerPoint presentations trying to convince my parents to get me a dog, but it never worked. My mom is absolutely terrified of dogs so I never thought I'd be able to have one if I was still living at home.

That was until my begging finally came through. After years of asking, my mom finally gave in to getting a dog. I was thrilled that my wish was finally coming true, but it definitely was a lot more than I expected.

Our dog is a two-month-old Shih Tzu named Leia. I was very excited to get her home but I soon realized that it would be a lot more than just playing and feeding time. For starters, Leia is a puppy so she requires a lot of sleep. She'll play, eat, and go potty for about an hour or more, and then she'll want to nap. The only problem is that she doesn't like to sleep unless someone is near, which means that she whined and cried all night when we tried to leave her alone.

The first night she was home we took turns rocking her to sleep. It was exhausting and definitely a long night, but since it was her first night home, we cut her some slack. The nights after that, we've slept by her at night and she hasn't been too bad, except for the fact that she woke me up at 4 am by biting my nose.

Since Leia is a puppy, she's learning to bite and you bet she's taking advantage of it. She likes to bite rugs, blankets, crates, boxes, and people. She doesn't bite very hard but she spends most of her play time biting and running all over the house like a rabbit.

The hardest thing about having a puppy is the potty training. We bought Leia a litter box since we won't be able to take her outside all of the time, but she doesn't use it. She pees whenever she wants and even after we move her, she refuses to use the litter box and instead tries to eat the litter. I've read online that Shih tzus are hard to train because they're stubborn and I can definitely see it now.

I'm not going to lie, Leia stresses me out a lot. It's hard to watch after her all of the time and I was overwhelmed the first day and thought that I wasn't going to be able to handle it. It's only been five days since we've had her but I have to say that it gets easier to handle. Leia is playful and adorable and my entire family loves her, even my mom. I'm excited to see her grow and can't wait for her to learn tricks.