...that's about how long the barking went on last night. I was up at midnight, then at 1:30, then at 2:30, and then at 3:15. After that I fell asleep and if Savannah barked between 3:15 and 8:00 I didn't hear it.
I tried not to get angry with her last night. I brought her outside at midnight, just in case she had to go. All she did was smell the air, sniff the grass, and start nipping at bluebonnets, so I brought her back inside. It was nearly a full moon out there and the coyotes were howling, and when I went outside with Savannah again at 1:30 the dogs from up the road were barking, as well as dogs from the other side of the hill. That's the trouble with so much distance between properties out here-- there aren't too many buffers for sounds so you can hear everything. Or rather, I can hear everything when I'm outside, but Savannah can hear everything when she's inside.
Instead of stomping down the stairs and telling Savannah that my sanity was again in question for getting a dog, I walked downstairs quietly and turned on the porch light to see what was happening out there. Except for a skunk, the porch was quiet. But of course Savannah heard and smelled the skunk, and I know she's going to bark at whatever noise she hears out there.
When Savannah barked at 1:30, I figured that I had two choices... either take her outside in the grass again for a minute or risk another puddle on the kitchen floor. On went the coat... out came the leash... and off we went. She did have to pee, and she went fairly quickly. I was thankful for that because our nearly 80-degree temperatures had dropped down into the 40s.
At the 3:15 barking, I walked into the kitchen and just looked at Savannah with my hands on my hips. She has learned that that particular posture doesn't mean that I think she's the world's most well-mannered puppy. I just looked at her for a minute or so, half asleep and my hands still on my hips, and then I went back upstairs and got into bed. The next thing I knew, my husband was sitting on the edge of the bed and was asking me if Savannah had to be walked this morning. I looked at the clock and it was eight o'clock.
"Why was Savannah barking so much last night?" he wanted to know. I told him about the skunk on the porch, the coyotes howling, the other dogs barking, and about taking her out twice in the middle of the night.
"We're catering too much to this dog's needs," said my husband.
Well. Isn't that why I was put on this planet? To walk a dog who barks in the middle of the night when an eight-pound skunk tip-toes across our porch? Of course I didn't say that, but I was sorely tempted.
The Great Pyrenees dogs are nocturnal by nature, which we did not know when we started looking at dogs back in September. These dogs were bred to protect livestock and property and their people from night-time predators, and they take their job seriously. Savannah has 'saved' us from countless raccoons and skunks when they had the nerve to come up on our porch in the wee hours of the night. However, being that Savannah has cried wolf so many times since joining our family, will we believe her if there is ever a "real" intruder?
I thought of keeping Savannah in the TV room with Sweet Pea at night... we wouldn't hear her barking from there, and that room is better insulated than the kitchen so she probably wouldn't hear every blessed footfall of the local wildlife. But then... if there were to be a real emergency, we wouldn't hear her frantic barking.
I have considered bringing Savannah upstairs with us at night, but then again, that defeats the purpose of having a watch-dog. Knowing how much Princess Savannah likes to be comfortable, she would climb up on the bed, settle her huge self between me and my husband, and sleep like a puppy. And, if an intruder came up on the porch, no one, including Savannah, would know.
Last night as I walked Savannah by the grass along the driveway, I looked over at our guest cottage and thought that if I put this dog into the cottage at night, the house would be bark-free and I'd get some really good sleep just like I did before bringing Savannah home on September 12 of last year. But of course I wouldn't do that. Savannah would feel lost and abandoned, and it has taken months for her to earn our trust.
So in answer to my husband's statement that we (and particularly me) are catering to this dog's needs too much: Yes, we are. I am. In the middle of these sleepless nights, I have come to the conclusion that I cannot, just can not, allow a pet of mine to feel unsafe, unhappy, unloved. Not having had children, every dog and cat I've ever had has been a child-substitute, and I've talked to them and fussed over them all as if they were indeed child-like. Whether this is good or bad for the pets, I have no idea, but except for one or two cats who got sick and died very young, every pet I've owned has lived a long and healthy and happy life.
As I walked outside with Savannah at 1:30 this morning, I looked up at that nearly-full moon and I could clearly see the stars, and the wind wasn't blowing and except for the coyotes howling and the dogs up the hill barking, it was indeed a beautiful night.
Savannah is in her bed as I type this. My husband walked her about an hour ago and she did all she had to do out there so I didn't have to walk her again. Just before Savannah went into her bed, she took one of the large dog biscuits that I set out by her water dish last night. She curled up in that bed with the biscuit hanging vertically from her mouth and when she put her head down, the bone-shaped biscuit stood on one end in the soft plushness of that bed and Savannah's chin rested on top of the other end. This puppy has somehow managed to balance that dog biscuit between the bed and her chin, and that's how she has been resting for the past twenty minutes or so. Not an easy trick... the biscuit is about five inches long and about 3/4" in thickness. If she moves her head even one-quarter of an inch, that perfect balance will be disrupted and the 'Milk Bone' biscuit will fall horizontally onto the bed.
Every time I look over at Savannah to see if she's still in that same position, she shifts her eyes to the left so she can look at me, then she blinks and stares straight ahead again, intent on keeping that biscuit upright underneath her chin. I have no idea what goes through this puppy's mind at times, but I'd give anything in the world to know what she's thinking right this minute.
We have a good dog here. A very good dog who has learned to love and trust us and thinks that her sole purpose on this planet is to protect us from everything that goes bump in the night. Savannah's "bumps in the night" are keeping us awake during the night, but there's no way for her to know that.
As I type this sentence, I can hear Savannah snoring. Her chin is still propped up on that vertical dog biscuit. For a very young and very pretty puppy, she snores like an old man.
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