You know how sometimes you dunno what causes a thing until it happens a second time? Yeah?
Well, one night last week Sadie was actin weird. She kept me up half the night, traipsing around with her clickety-clack toenails and her jingle-jangle tags, and the pant-pant-whine of her stupid furry face.
It’s always my side of the bed — kids, dogs — always the mama, am I right?
When I got up in the morning, I don’t know when, but early, I was all, “I was up til three cause the stupid dog was acting fucking weird!” and Sassy said, “Same.”
So last night, The Mister and Sadie performed their nighttime ritual — He took her out and she did her tricks and she got her cookie and again she did not lay down and sleep her face. She hung around with the panting and the whine and bout drove me outta my mind. AGAIN.
I tried all the same stuff one does to appease those who do not speak. I checked her water. I loved her up. I snuggled her. I rubbed her tummy. I scratched her snout. I made her a special pallet with a pillow and some dirty clothes. She would not lie down and shut up and go to sleep.
Too close to infant care for me. This is why I don’t have more babies and why I don’t adopt puppies and OMFG DOG, WHAT DO YOU WANT!?
I am not the dog whisperer.
Finally, at 3:50 A-fucking-M, I took her outside. She was eager to go. I stood there, vulnerable in the darkness — is my yard four times bigger in the dark, or nah? — while that bitch sniffed every single freakin blade of grass and made absolutely nothin. Then, she plopped down in the center of the patio and with her eyes, she said to me, “You may go now.” It turns out THAT is what she wanted.
Oh Hell No! It’d been a long time since I was so angry.
You know those times when you take a deep breath and count to ten? Yeah, I should’ve done that. But no, I went in and yelled at MY husband about MY dog and as is typical, he yelled louder and went back to sleep.
The nerve of these people who can always, always sleep!
I went back outside in the darkness and practically herded my dog indoors. I gave her half a cookie, pointed to the living room, and told her “Go Lie Down!” She trotted off to our bedroom instead.
When I arrived, I SAW. The window was open. Sadie was poised nose to air, obviously engaged in some sorta olfactory delight. She wanted to be where the smells are. Unfortunately, I wanted her not to die a tragic traffic death. Impasse. Total impasse.
I closed the window and snapped my fingers, “Out! Out! Out!” With a huff, I shut the door almost closed.
She went nigh nigh. In the living room. Like a good bitch should.
Stupid smells. Mama needs her sleep.
Stream of Consciousness Saturday — SoCS ‘smell’ is brought to you by LindaGHill
I was closing up shop when this arrived. I’ve already sent it to the Mrs. Maddie goes out and works her nose sometimes and we swear she’s sniffing some far away land instead of doing one of the two jobs she should be doing. Sometimes, it seems that she’s gonna break her nose.
I’m picturing you out there at 3:50 AfM and I’m laughing a little. Great job with the prompt.
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Thanks 🙂 And thanks for sharing!
That nose was workin overtime this week. Spring must be magical for dogs!
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When the wind is out of the west, I’m pretty sure Maddie can smell Sadie 🙂
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AW! That’s such a nice thought 🙂
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Butthead will walk the entire yard (and it’s pretty damn big) nose to the ground just a’sniffin’. Then go out and do it all over again an hour later. And I’ll get no reprieve because SOMETHING HAS BEEN IN MY YARD AND I NEED TO FIND IT. How do they not hyperventilate with all that sniffin’? Meanwhile, Le Moo will just want to go out and splay on the patio and just WATCH. We’ve been through the 3am nose-poke-gotta-go-out-now-or-i’ll-die dance only to have her go out and lie down. In the dark. Until we have to go out there and drag her in with a leash. Normally it’s Hub who gets nose-poked at 3am (it usta be me with the previous dog, but these two are better trained!), but with him being gone for a few days, it’s gonna be me! At 3am in the dark, in my nightie, with a flashlight, and ohshitwasthatabatthatflewby? Yay.
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OMG. This had better not become a THING. I feel for you. I was none too pleased alone in the darkness.
Lying down in the dark is just not gonna happen! No no no. This cannot be a THING.
😦
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I will attempt to not allow Le Moo to get away with it…cuz I hate being out there in the dark!
You tell Sadie-Lady to be a good girl and give her snoots a rest!
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*nods*
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This is why we have great big Great Dane-sized dog doors. If they wanna smell things, they can go out to the kennel and sniff and snort all they want. Best thing we ever did. I remember the days of standing out in the rain waiting for the poop that would never come. You are a good dog Mom and an exceptional wife. Your husband is lucky you didn’t roust him out of bed to take the dog out. Mama doesn’t sleep, nobody sleeps!
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Hah! Thanks so much!
While that sounds fantastic for y’all, we have an escape artist. (Fencing seems trusty, we don’t know how she does it.) She’s unreliable, has gone over a year without runnin off now, but we live surrounded by busy thoroughfares and the interstate so we just can’t take the risk. 😦 At most, we’ll leave her out while we do yard work, but usually we just hold her leash or tether her to the front porch so she can be outdoors with us.
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Yeah, I get that. Even though we are out in the country, we live on a really busy road. Our kennel fence is six-foot chain link lined with cement blocks. So far, we haven’t had any escapees. I don’t blame you for playing it safe though. I’d be heartbroken if I lost one of my boys.
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Oof, yeah.
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I’ve been through all that when we had the dogs. It was always me they woke up to let them out in the middle of the night. They’d do the ‘check the perimeter of the yard’ thing, and take for-ev-er! I got to where I just got me a snack, sat at the kitchen table, and did a bunch of writing…all in the near darkness. When the dogs passed on, I kinda missed our early morning times. 🙂 Sweet Sadie is so cute, and I’m sure she gives you that innocent look, too. Oh, yeah, the back yard always gets way bigger in the dark!
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If I had a window where I could watch her, she’d be out more, but alas, I do not. I rather like your solution to the situation though. Although, I can honestly say I wouldn’t like it at 3:50am, either!
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Hey hon, I just wanted to let you know that I’ve nominated you for the Growing Self Blogger Award. You always make me laugh and I want to share you with my followers. 🙂 https://wordpress.com/post/mainepaperpusher.wordpress.com/3401
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Oh thank you so much! Very kind! I love making you laugh 😀
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I don’t have any dog stories like that, but I remember when the girls were little, they come to our room at night if they had a bad dream of something and they’d call (really quietly), “Mom.” Never “Dad.” So eventually, I pretended to be asleep and I’d give my husband an elbow. so he could get up with them. 🙂 Hee, hee.
janet
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HAH!
If I want to wake my husband, I stand at a distance, poke and retreat.
My children always prefer(red) to stand next to me and stare until I awoke! Ugh!
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😁
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OMG, yes! #4 Daughter would stand there in her nightie and stare at me until I woke up. I used to call her The LIttle Pink Spook.
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I gotta tell ya, I’ve been spookin Sassy similarly lately. I always apologize, but I’m only half sorry 😉
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I don’t have a dog now but I have two cats that need to have drawers and cupboards open so they can find Narnia without breaking into things and keeping me awake
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LMAO! Well, that’s somethin!
We have to leave the bedroom doors not quite shut.
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The struggle is real
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Seriously, why do they have to sniff EVERY SINGLE BLADE OF GRASS????
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Surely the grass is full of interesting bits our human noses can’t detect? It’s annoying, why ever.
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Ugh. I’m glad you figured it out before it happened a third night and you flipped your shit. 😉 Bilbo has been up at night a lot lately because of storms. He has developed anxiety, and he always comes to ME, the disliker of dogs and other animals, for comfort. Yeah, mama thing.
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Me too!
Glad the ac is on tonight, too!
I’m sorry you gotta deal with Bilbo’s anxiety. You might consider a thunder vest or thunder shirt — I don’t know the right word. People do say it helps the doggos like weighted blankets help us.
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Like mother, like dog son, I guess 😉 I’ll look into that. It’s strange how he has developed anxiety over storms all of a sudden. So pitiful.
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It is. So sad stuff.
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Before her dog passed, my mother used to put one of her late father’s flannel shirts on the dog when the thunder was coming. It seemed to help.
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If a dog’s nose could talk, oh what tales they could tell.
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Volumes a day, I suspect!
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“Stupid furry face”? Ahhhhhhhhhh, I root for her! 😉
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😉
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I feel for Sadie. Smells evoke so much and not to be able to express your feelings must be terrible. Or maybe I am making more of it than it actually was. There was probably just some really neat smell of something rotten she had to sniff.
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I suspect a nocturnal critter, but ya never can tell.
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Hopefully we wont have this issue with our newest edition, Willow the shih tzu, but I feel ya. I recall when mas old dog Zena took off and came home with parts of a quite old deer carcass. It smelled FANTASTIC to her, Im sure.
Fun times.
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You never can tell. Sadie never did this before this last week. Must be a nummy critter out there, I suspect.
Dogs are so gross.
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AHA!! That explains Theo recently! Yes, with the windows open, he smells and hears stuff too. At 4:30 afm he was sending out tentative meows like “are you awake?” “Getting up soon, maybe?”
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OH Lawd. I feel for ya. I love having open windows, but I guess the smells were just too good this week. Apparently the animals can’t sleep with all those smells out there!
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Our cat, Tipper, loves the outside smells and sights. Now that the lightning bugs are out in force, he races from one open window to another, back and forth, upstairs and down. Charlie can’t hear it, and I developed the knack for that Japanese present-but-asleep thing during Natural Childbirth, so it doesn’t really bother me. Lucky for him. Otherwise, he’d be out there sleeping wit’ da lightning bugs. Or *I* would.
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Ooh, mmhn, same. Can’t have that. Nope.
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“I am not the dog whisperer…” LOL!
I would like to trade you the dog that smells and paces for the cat that yowls at 4 a.m. because he’s awake and so should everyone else, including me, and he wants food and will not quiet down until he pushes everything off the computer table and tromps across my head a few times and I finally get up and feed him.
Wanna? Wanna trade?
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NOPE. No trade here! I gotta leave doors open so Catticus can travel room to room and that’s annoying enough. He does sometimes carry on, but I sleep with earplugs, which help.
I give them dry food before bed and they don’t get wet food until the dog eats, which is never before 8:45. I am grateful this works for us, because I would put my cats in the shed if they acted like that in the morning! lol “Y’all can hunt spiders and howl at the leaves!” *slam*
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Unfortunately, I don’t have a shed, but I wonder if the patio would work. Put a little house out there for sleeping and a litter box. He could chase bugs all night. Hmmmm… 😉
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If I screened in porch, I don’t think the boys would come in at night 😉
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Oh, I feel for you, Joey. I get very crabby when I am woken up in the middle of the night for no good reason!! Luckily when Roxy gets like that, she goes to my husband to go with her whilst she sniffs around outside! I am blisfully unaware! 🙂
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Oh you ARE lucky!
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I know 🙂
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I love the way you tell a story! And, I can certainly relate. Dogs are so sweet….and annoying sometimes. Glad you finally got some sleep. 🙂
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Pets are members of the family but if only they could tell us what is on their little furry minds life would be so much easier. 🙂 Hope she has settled down so you can get your sleep. 🙂
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Too hot to leave the windows open, so she’s had to calm her sniffer 😉
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