Pace yourself

Matthew gets up every morning, walks the dog and feeds her, feeds me breakfast, then goes to work. On his lunch break, he comes home and lets the dog out and feeds me lunch. In those in between times, we debate what to do with the dog. Crate or let her roam? She can’t get into the bed with me because she’s too heavy and rough to be near my broken leg. If she’s out, though, she really wants to be near someone, so she tries sneak attacks on the bed which result in yelling, or, she walks her route.

When she’s not in her crate, and one of us is gone, she is really lonely for the missing person. On days when we leave the dog out of her crate, she starts in my bedroom, looks at me and begs, then walks down the stairs, sniffs the door, cries for Matthew, then comes back upstairs to cry at me and beg to get in the bed. She repeats this cycle ad infinitum.

She annoys me so much that I’ve basically conscripted her to the crate if Matthew’s not here, no matter how short the time is. Her toenails clacking up and down the stairs and her nose whines are enough to drive me nuts. Today I agreed to leave her out, and she seems to have actually laid down to rest somewhere out of earshot. It’s nice when we get a peaceful family working like this.