It is just after four o'clock in the morning and I've been awake for over an hour, browsing through Pinterest, looking at old Blog posts, reading articles I found on Google about why dogs bark in the middle of the night, and I've just had breakfast (fruit and yogurt).
For the past hour, Savannah has been barking at the train going through the next town, at the coyotes who are howling at the train whistle, and at the neighbor's outside dogs who are responding to the coyotes. Savannah didn't let out all of her barks at the same time.... she'd give a bark here, a bark there, every ten minutes or so, and I'd heard enough of it from upstairs so I just gave in and got up and that's that.
Savannah is now busy emptying out her toy basket and arranging her toys around the kitchen and the breakfast room. There doesn't seem to be a pattern there, but the blue monkey is always the first toy rescued. That much-loved monkey is probably the easiest to get because it's right in her crate at night, and close to her all day long. All of her other toys are in a haphazard jumble in the toy basket that was a gift from Judy's daughter Laurel before her recent move to Germany. Savannah has already been outside for a short walk in the patch of grass near the back steps, and in her little puppy mind, a new day has begun.
I knew that this would be a rough night... Savannah did not want to get into her crate when Gary and I were getting ready to go upstairs last night. Seems like ages ago when my head hit the pillow and I must have immediately fallen asleep because I didn't get enough sleep the night before -- for the same reasons: train whistles, coyotes, outside dogs, and Savannah adding her two-cents'-worth into the fray. My husband suggested that I just let Savannah sleep outside her crate, with free run of the kitchen and breakfast room. I didn't feel right doing that... she's still so young yet, and while I do trust her immensely, I don't trust that her puppy instincts might take over her common sense in a fit of puppy frenzy.
Savannah had a good long walk after dinner tonight, then she played with all of her toys, and she even put some of them back into the toy basket before she chose another. (A truly wonderful trick that I did not teach her.) I thought she had worn her puppy self out by the time Gary and I went upstairs to bed. I guess this puppy has more energy than I give her credit for. Maybe she's ready for longer walks now, especially in the evenings. And if I ever get enough sleep again, I will be ready for longer walks also.
One very good thing happened last night while we were in the TV room... Savannah climbed up onto the sofa, sat next to my husband while he was watching baseball and she leaned into the left side of his body and stayed there contentedly for the longest time. Every few minutes or so, my husband would look at me, raise his eyebrows a bit, then look down at Savannah, very proud of himself because Puppy Princess chose his lap rather than mine. I know my husband, and I know for sure that he wants this puppy to think that he's as indispensable to her as he was to Gracie years ago.
I spent part of this morning rearranging chairs and puppy crates and plush dog beds in the kitchen and the breakfast room. Being that Savannah gave me such a hard time last night going into her crate, I figured I may as well just move it to a place she might like better. When I tried to put Savannah into her crate last night, she wiggled away from me and jumped into her pillow bed as if she had been sleeping in that bed since day one of her puppy life. I literally had to lure her out of the pillow bed and into the crate. She was so disappointed in her sleeping arrangements last night that her first bark was before I even got all the way up the staircase.
Of course, back down the stairs I came, telling Savannah that it was sleeping time, not play time and certainly not barking time. She looked at me with those impossibly cute Pyrenees eyes of hers and she put her head down on her blue monkey and sighed. Fine. Up the stairs I went.... and back down I came again within ten minutes. This went on for about twenty minutes and she finally fell asleep after I pointed my finger at her and gave her a series of No! No! No! No! No! (She does understand what that means.) Then that blasted train went by in the middle of the night, so far away in the next town, and it sounded like it was in our backyard.
So this morning, I moved the crate into her favorite corner of the breakfast room, and I put her plush dog bed into the spot where her crate was. I'm hoping that she likes this new arrangement and will sleep better in that crate because it is as far from the back door as it can get and still stay within the limits of the kitchen and the breakfast room. As Savannah grows out of her puppy-ness in the months to come, we can eliminate the crate altogether and she can just have the plush-pillow dog bed.
As always, cats being cats and thus not willing to miss an opportunity to explore, Sweet Pea noticed the crate in the breakfast room and sniffed it, then walked into it and made himself comfy on Savannah's very soft pink blanket. Savannah watched Sweet Pea going into that crate, and as soon as Sweet Pea had settled himself into the back corner, Savannah got up and slowly moved towards her crate. She stuck her big puppy head into that crate and very slowly and gently picked up her blue monkey toy and carried it into the TV room and rested her chin on it. I think the most important thing in Savannah's puppy life right now is the safety of that blue monkey. And let's not forget her mission to let the entire world know that a train is moving at 3:30 in the morning.
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