Sweet Dreams

Savannah has been sleeping much better at night this week, which means I am also. I've learned that this dog can hear a car coming up the road, and that will get her to start growling when the car is all the way down the hill. As the car comes closer to our driveway, that's when she will start barking. I think Savannah has learned the 'normal' sounds on our hill and a neighbor coming home late at night is not at all normal to this super-protective puppy.

There have been raccoons in the driveway late at night but Savannah is getting selective at what she's barking at now. I've seen one particular raccoon that walks around the road by the end of our driveway... he's huge, and the first time I saw him I thought it was a medium-sized dog out there. Savannah never did bark at that raccoon but I think that's because he didn't come up to the porch.

It's sometimes a challenge to walk Savannah along the road during the day... she is still trying to chase pick-up trucks that she doesn't like. I know that she recognizes Judy's truck because Savannah will just stand quietly in the road and watch as it gets closer to us, and then Judy says 'Hello Miss Savannah!' and I'm sure that this puppy thinks she's going to get a treat.

Three of the other neighbors have pick-up trucks, and when Savannah sees their vehicles she will try and lunge at them at the very least, and bark and growl at them if it's after dark. Those neighbors haven't met Savannah because they tend to stay to themselves and don't socialize much (if at all) so that could be why Savannah doesn't like them.... she just doesn't know them.

As I type this, Savannah is in her bed and sound asleep. She has had her morning walk, and her morning chase-Sweet-Pea-around-the-kitchen-island-and-into-the-breakfast-room-and-then-around-the-sofa-in-the-TV-room ritual.  Sweet Pea tolerates this behavior to a point, and if he's not in the mood he will swat Savannah on her nose and then call out with a plaintive meow that sounds like the sky is falling on his kitty head. Of course Sweet Pea isn't hurt, but I think he's just wanting to get my attention. (As in "Look at what I have to put up with because of this puppy of yours!")

I bought a new cover for Savannah's bed the other day, being that she had torn a hole in the red-and-white-checked tablecloth that was on there to hide the holes she put into the actual fabric of the bed. The newest cover is also a tablecloth, green/beige/burgundy plaid, which matches the colors of the rug that's in the middle of the breakfast room. This latest bed-cover looks very preppy, as opposed to the Italian-restaurant-tablecloth-look of the first one. I intend to look at the tablecloths in the thrift store every time I go into town, so I'll always have a back-up cover for Savannah's bed. I just refuse to get this puppy a new bed until I'm sure she won't be chewing holes in it.

Speaking of chewing.... I had gone upstairs the other day and I guess I spent too much time in the library for Savannah's liking. When I got back down here, Savannah was stretched out on the sofa in the TV room, surrounded by bits and pieces of the corner of the sofa cushion. What in the blessed world?!  (Which is about what I said out loud when I saw the mess she had made.)

Thankfully, she must have just started chewing on that cushion because just the corner of it was torn off and shredded. Bits of fabric and form were in a pile on the carpet below that one side of the sofa. The TV room sofa is old, but had Sweet Pea not damaged the back of it with his nails, and had Savannah not torn off the corner of that seat cushion, the 'oldness' of that piece of furniture wouldn't be an issue.

Now it's an issue, and will need to be replaced. For the time being, I've turned that cushion upside-down, and I don't let Savannah stay in that room unless I'm in there with her or at least nearby so I can hear her if she does something stupid.  We'll be replacing that sofa at some point, getting a much larger one, but I don't want to do that until I know for sure that Savannah knows the difference between the sofa and one of her chew-toys.

I've never had these problems with a dog before. Years ago when I had little dogs, neither one of them chewed anything but their toys. When my husband and I had Gracie, the only thing she chewed was the corner of a blanket that was in her crate, and a piece of cardboard that she found on the floor of the laundry room. No other chewing at all, and Gracie was a 48-pound Border Collie/Black Lab mix.

Savannah's mix of Border Collie and Great Pyrenees has been a challenge. In some ways, she has been the very best dog, and in other ways I'm still asking myself if I lost my mind the day I told my husband that we should get another dog.