Monday, March 4, 2013

The dog who cries wolf


So my dog, Sammy, likes to bark in the middle of the night. Not just straight-up bark-bark-bark-bark. But a single fairly non-starting low-level woof.

That's what I heard this morning at about 4:50am. Ugh.

But now I'm awake. But I'm cozy and it's chilly beyond the covers, so I ignore it and hope like heck she doesn't do it again.

Does it ever work? Rarely.

Upon the second bark, I haul myself out of bed and to the living room and find her still laying on her dog bed, facing the vertical blinds on the front window. But she's heard me and looks up. I admonish her to hush and shuffle back to my room, chug some water because my stomach has woken up too and sneak back under the covers.

I get comfy and warm, and just as I think I've dodged a bullet. Bark.


Ugh. So I drag myself out of bed yet again but detour to the bathroom. But I'm on the far side of the house and her hearing's going, so when I'm done, I decide to try for more sleep. But just as I lift the covers...another bark.

Well, there's no ignoring her because I'd rather get up than risk a puddle or worse. Plus, I really was hungry. And at least it was five am rather than one or two or three. Up again, and this time she's sitting in the middle of the room, but she's stuck because her back leg is acting up and it doesn't always work properly. I help her to her feet and we head for the back door and I start cooking.

Are there pet behaviors you can't ignore even though the chances are good it means nothing but the alternatives are enough to spur you into action every time?

3 comments:

Unknown said...

You're not alone! One of my cats, Josh, likes to wake me up at the crack of dawn on weekdays. He'll start by meowing, which I'll ignore. Then he'll progress to pawing at my face. If I ignore that, he'll jump down and start gnawing on the corners of my books. That usually gets me up in a hurry, at which point he looks at me innocently, as if to say, "Oh, you're up? Be a sport and put some food in the bowl."

I generally get up when he starts to headbutt me, to save my books from damage. :)

Regina Richards said...

My Bbeagle Flash feels entitles to a human-food snack as soon as I enter the kitchen in the morning and he will whine until he gets one.

Lara's kitty certainly knows what's important to her and goes straight for the books. Smart kitty.

Chill N said...

How about a cat that gets up a tad earlier than I do in the morning and then proceeds to open cabinet doors and bang them shut? No, I'm not kidding :-)

Nancy