I knew there could be a little bit of trouble here when my husband walked into the kitchen yesterday and asked me that question as he looked for Savannah.
"Savannah is in the TV room with Sweet Pea," I told him. I reserved comment on the what's-her-name thing. The night before, Savannah had barked for nearly an hour before she settled down and went to sleep. My husband was not at all happy about that. Last night, however, Savannah barked in her crate for just 15 minutes before going to sleep, but she also woke up at two o'clock in the morning and started barking at something. Once again, as Gary and I agreed, neither one of us came down the stairs to see what the problem was. Savannah kept up her barking for another 15 minutes or so and then went back to sleep and didn't wake up until I came downstairs at 6:30 this morning.
In the dark of our bedroom at two o'clock in the morning, however, the conversation went something like this:
"We should have just bought a gun instead of a dog. That damn dog can sleep out in the coop from now on so we won't hear her barking at night."
"She's not a dog, she's still a puppy, and I'm not putting her in the coop."
"Then she can sleep in the rooms over the barn or in the guest cottage."
"I don't think a six-month-old puppy needs a two-bedroom apartment over the barn and the guest cottage is for guests and besides that, this is where she lives."
"I don't remember going through all this puppy stuff with Gracie."
"That's because you were gone for 12 hours every day when we got Gracie and I set my alarm for the middle of the night every night for four months so I could get Gracie out of her crate and out to the grass before she started whimpering and barking and waking you up."
"Why didn't I hear the alarm?"
"Because you were tired from such long days back then and I had the alarm clock under my pillow so your puppy would not disturb you in the middle of the night."
"Oh."
This morning, I'm asking myself how my husband can so quickly forget the progress that Savannah has made in just four weeks. She has been bringing her toys to Gary and wanting to play, he throws the ball and she brings it back to him, she sits and gives her paw on command, she gets up on the sofa in the TV room and puts her head on his lap and goes to sleep while he's watching a baseball game, she plays with the cats as if she's been living with them for all of her puppy life. In all of her days with us, Savannah has not chewed on anything but her own toys, she has not has an accident in the house, and she has shown us that she has learned to trust us even though a hint of her old sense of caution comes into her eyes when she is faced with something new.
Four weeks ago, on the way towards Houston when we went to meet this puppy and her previous owners, I reminded my husband of the extra work and attention a puppy needs and I told him right then to turn the car around if he wasn't willing to deal with that. And since we've had Savannah here, I've not even asked him to do anything except call her by name, give her treats, and not ignore her when he walks into whatever room she is in. And I don't think that was too much to ask.
This morning I went into my husband's office upstairs and sat down in the chair by his desk. There was one question that had now become the huge pink puppy in the room and I just had to ask it:
"I have a feeling that you really don't want this puppy anymore and if you really don't, then let me know now, before we get her fixed this week, and before I invest any more time and emotion into her." (As if I hadn't already?)
"She's gotten better than she was but I still don't remember going through all of this with Gracie."
"That's because you weren't involved in all the puppy-care and training of Gracie. You left the house at 6:30 in the morning and didn't get home till 7:30 at night. You got all the best of Gracie--- her play-time, and I got all the rest of it. And by the time you weren't working those long hours anymore, Gracie was trained and confident and a great dog."
"But Gracie didn't have all the hang-ups that Savannah seems to have."
"That's because she was only ten weeks old when we got her and with puppies that age who have no bad memories, everybody is their best friend. So just let me know what you want to do here about Savannah."
My husband looked at his computer. "We'll keep her," he told me. And that was that. I won't ask that question again, or give any other comment on the issue.
There has not been such a doubt in my mind about keeping or not keeping Savannah, and I know I took a big chance there, but had my husband said he no longer wanted this puppy, then I would have left it up to him to pack up her crate and her toys and her bed and take her in his car to wherever he thought she would have a better life.
At this very minute, I can't help thinking of a comment my husband's mother said to me years and years ago: "Men are such work."
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