Oh well, so much for our pact not to go downstairs if Savannah barked in the middle of the night. On the night of her surgery for spaying, Savannah slept straight through the entire night. It was so quiet that I woke up twice and tip-toed down the stairs to make sure she was okay. Savannah was fine, of course, just exhausted from the trip to the vet's and she was still coping with the effects of the anesthesia.
Last night, Savannah barked at two o'clock in the morning. I clearly heard one bark near the back stairs, followed by one whimpering sound. I was out of that bed like a shot, putting on my slippers as I walked from the bed to the hallway. I took a scant second or two to make sure I was sufficiently awake before I started going down the stairs... no sense in tumbling down a wood staircase when walking down is so much more appropriate.
When I got into the kitchen, Savannah was quietly sitting by the kitchen door. It took me about five seconds to get out of my slippers, put on the shoes I keep by the door, get her leash on her, and out the door we went into the grass.... and Savannah quickly found a spot for her after-midnight sprinkling of the lawn.
The temperatures overnight have been in the low 60s here now that we're in mid-October, so the blast of cooler air woke me up right quick as soon as my feet hit that porch. When Savannah finished and walked away from the grass and back to the courtyard, I gave her a big puppy hug and told her what a good girl she was. Now honestly.... in regard to those chapters in the puppy training books that tell you to ignore night-time barking... well, pooh on that advice. When people wake up and have to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, would they be pleased to find all the bathroom doors locked so they couldn't relieve themselves? Sometimes a puppy just has to do what a puppy has to do, and they need their people to help them.
I stayed awake for about half an hour after bringing Savannah back into the house, being that the fresh air gave me a jolt that made any sort of sleep evaporate from my system out there in the dark. While Savannah carried her blue monkey from the kitchen to the breakfast room, I checked my eMail (nothing at that hour, of course) and then checked my Pinterest page (three new followers, one of whom I blocked) and also checked 'Humans of New York' on Facebook (love that site, and have just received Brandon's new book). By that time, Savannah was asleep again, the blue monkey under her chin, and her body stretched out on the rug in the breakfast room. Back upstairs I went, trying very hard not to make a sound on the stairs so I wouldn't disturb the Puppy Princess.
Speaking of those stairs.... I'm thinking now that maybe we should carpet the staircases, both the one going up from the foyer and the one going up from the kitchen. Something with a Victorian pattern, covering the middle part of those extra-wide steps and leaving a border of wood showing on each side of the runner. Of course, it would make the staircase softer for us to walk on, and eliminate the sound of shoes going up and down the steps, and a runner (with nice brass accents holding down the carpet where it creases) would make it very easy for Savannah to walk up and down the stairs. She has not tried climbing the stairs yet, and I think the slippery feeling of the wood beneath her paws has a lot to do with that.
I know that sooner or later, this puppy is going to want to follow us upstairs, especially at night. And just how safe is a polished wood staircase for a dog with long legs and a body weight that could break one of her legs if she fell down the stairs and landed in a heap at the bottom? Not safe at all. When we had the third floor library carpeted a couple of years ago, we had looked at staircase runners and there were quite a few that we liked... surely my husband and I could agree on one of those patterns.
Savannah's puppy crate has now been turned into Sweet Pea's 'cat cave.' That crate was originally in the kitchen by the back door when we first brought Savannah home. She took to it well and slept through mostly every night during her first two weeks here. When her night-time barking at every little sound from the outside wildlife was keeping us awake half the night, I moved the crate from the kitchen to the breakfast room, thinking she wouldn't hear every raccoon and armadillo and skunk that walked by the pack porch. I don't think Savannah liked the crate being in the breakfast room... for whatever reason, the breakfast room became the playroom for her toys and her 'safe place' when neighbors and friends came into the house through the back door in the kitchen. By that time as well, Savannah had grown higher and longer and that old crate of Gracie's was just a bit small for her and she couldn't stretch out for sleeping.
My idea was to put the crate in the TV room, just in case I needed it for Savannah again in the near future. So into the TV room went the crate, in front of the windows looking out at the side porch. There had been a carpeted cat-tower in that spot, but I had recently moved that out to the garage for Mickey and Gatsby to sleep in at night. I didn't want to be looking at a metal crate in the TV room, so I covered it with a plush burgundy afghan, arranging a plain old blanket under the afghan and directly on top of the metal crate, knowing full well that Sweet Pea would jump on top of that crate and I wanted him to have a comfortable place to land. Inside the crate, I put Savannah's bright pink and very soft blanket, thinking that she would recognize her blanket if she wanted to get inside the crate for whatever reason.
Well, think again. Savannah has not only forgotten about that crate, but she barely gives it a glance when she's in the TV room. Sweet Pea, however, has claimed that crate as his own.... he sleeps on the bright pink blanket inside the crate, and he sits on the top of the crate and looks out the window to watch the birds during the day. At any given time of day, Sweet Pea's toys are inside that crate, everything from a long piece of yellow ribbon to a small white stuffed dog that's half the size of a Beanie-Baby. Hence, Sweet Pea's Cat Cave.
And where does Savannah sit when she's in the TV room? On the sofa, of course. Usually, she is right between my husband and me... and if I don't give her enough room, then she will stretch out onto either my lap or my husband's, and the one who gets the back half of Savannah in their lap is usually the one who leaves the sofa and goes to one of the chairs to sit alone. What is wrong with that picture? (Savannah would probably say 'Not a thing!')
Years and years ago when we first brought Gracie home from the shelter, my husband and I agreed that "Dogs are not allowed on the furniture." That rule lasted long enough for Gracie to grow out of her small-puppy stage and discover the ability to jump from the floor to the bed, landing on Gary's side and sleeping there throughout the night. In the fifteen years we had Gracie, she never got up on the sofa... she preferred the bed for sleeping, and did so until she got very old and her legs just wouldn't let her jump that high.
Savannah has already broken the 'No dogs on the furniture' rule and if we decide to get those staircases carpeted, the 'No pets on the second and third floors of the house' rule will be history as well. Personally, I'd be at Home Depot right this minute ordering those stair runners, but my husband takes longer to make up his mind.
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