Two nights ago the dog woke mu up in the middle of the night. She was on the bed sitting between my husband and me and she was looking at me. She gets on and off the bed during the night. She has this charming way of lighting on the bed soundlessly almost. She's light on her feet and, as one dog trainer said, was one of those dogs with light bones. She's delicate in a way. Until she flops.
She comes on the bed or goes into her cage and then just flops down. She likes to come up on the bed in the middle of the night to spend a few minutes with us. She never stays for long. I haven't figured out what exactly she wants. It's not attention, she gets that. It's not that you've stopped petting her head or rubbing her belly, because that doesn't seem to be cause for her to leave. She just wants to be with people for a few minutes and then, her need for companionship filled for the time being, she's off and under the bed or back in her cage or into the bathroom on the cool tile floor for the next stage in her rounds of the room for the night.
So two nights ago when I woke up to find her just looking at me, I knew something was wrong. She doesn't ask to go out in the middle of the night—something I work hard at when I've had dogs, building that bladder stamina to hold it all night. She's fine even as we sleep a little late on the weekends. This was something different so I got up and asked her if she needed to go out. She headed to the door but seemed unsure.
I reached down to move a dog bone out of the way in the dark she'd left near the door—only to find it wasn't a dog bone at all but a cold, wet, not well formed pile she'd left for us earlier in the night. She hadn't been feeling well and had gone to the bathroom, unable to control herself. This wasn't like her. First in the control aspect. Now that she's housetrained, she's housetrained. She hasn't gone in the house in a good while that I can remember. And second in the consistency of the pile she'd left. This was a dog that wasn't feeling well.
I opened the door, let her out and didn't even say, "don't run off" or bother to hook her up. I did a first pass cleaning of the carpet, covering the spot for better cleaning with the carpet cleaner in the morning, washed my hands thoroughly, called her back inside and went back to sleep.
In the morning we found a second spot in the closet that was worse. She really had been feeling badlt. All was better though, or so I thought. It could have been a new treat I gave her or some food the children dropped she got to. I was glad it was over and thankful my husband did the carpet cleaning.
Last night I had a scratchy throat so I took a small swig of children's Bendryl around midnight. This morning I woke up to find the dog locked in her cage, leaning against the door. And there was a smell. She had lost control in the closet again and my husband had locked her in the cage to prevent more accidents—only she'd had another one in the back of the cage. She was unthrilled, and so was my husband. With the Benadryl I had slept through the whole thing.
I got to thinking and I realized I had gotten her the super amazing, better than gold standard, must have dog food from the fancy pet store down the road. I'd just switched her over to it when this started. We pulled the food bowl up and while my husband was out today he picked up a bag of the brand ofdog food the breeder had given us when we got her over a year ago.
I was in the kitchen with a pair of scissors, just cracking open a corner of the bag when the dog came into the kitchen, looking expectantly. She knew I had dog food. She was interested. She looked hungry even. This is a dog who's never in a real hurry to eat and gets around to food at some point in the day. She'll eat people food if you give it to her, but only some things and even the highest dog valued items like ham or bacon she'll smell and gingerly take from your hand. But this bag of dog food barely opened had her in the kitchen in seconds.
I poured the entire bag into a large bin and stood back to let her approach. She stuck her head in and started to eat. I let her eat until she was full, interrupting her only to fill her food bowl and stick it across the room beside her water.
She seems much happier now, less uncomfortable perhaps. Maybe I'm reaching here, but she refused to come inside today she was having so much fun outside. That migth be just because it's suddenly turned very cold. She really loves the cold.
The Big Boy Update; My husband said before bed tonight to my daughter it was time to trim both his and her nails. My son called out, "you don't have to trim mine!" Following that up with, "sometimes it pays to have bad habits." He chews his nails, a habit we've been talking to him about quitting.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughters main teacher and VI teacher both independently sent emails that today had been a very good day at school with much less anxiety from my daughter than they'd seen in a long time. We're not certain what it was. One change was sending her to school with an audio book to listen to in the cab, time she very much does not enjoy. If keeping her mind occupied and entertained is helpful, I'll keep her in audio books for the remainder of the school year.
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