I love both of my dogs equally and they both present their own unique challenges. Since we adopted both very young, it’s been an adventure that’s as close as I’d ever like to come to raising actual toddlers.
Crackers has been throwing a fit lately when I try to put him in his separate room to sleep. He so desperately wants to sleep in our bed, but we can’t allow that anymore because he’ll become too territorial and nip at us for daring to try to sleep in our own bed as well. My husband is a pest control technician and he has to get up really early in the morning for work, so I can’t allow Crackers to disrupt his sleep. I work too, but I’m self-employed and set my own hours, so I can start later in the morning if I need to.
Currently, it’s after 1 am and Crackers is barking/whining loudly outside the bedroom door. I’ve already tried going out there to let him in his room (where he has a very comfy couch to sleep on and blankets to cuddle in), but he’s being stubborn and won’t go. He’s putting up a hard protest to join us in the bedroom, and I’m not falling for that again.
So currently I guess we’re having a standoff, and I’m not backing down to a 20-lb dog who doesn’t have a job and doesn’t pay bills around here. Sorry Crackers, you’re cute but you’ve already proven that you’re incapable of sharing a bed, and our rest is more important than yours because we pay the bills around here. If you could learn to lay at the end of the bed and nicely share it like Miles does (without growling/nipping at us), we would let you sleep in here too. If only you understood English so I could explain this to you.
I don’t have a solution to this problem at the moment except to go back out there, watch a little more TV, drink some more wine and hope he simmers down since he’s not letting me sleep anyway. I’ll take the insomnia for the team because my husband works the early mornings for us. I think that’s a pretty fair trade-off.
Now that I’m back out in the living room, Crackers has calmed down and is sitting next to me on the couch (probably gloating that he won). Hubby and Miles are enjoying the comfy bed, and I’ll probably end up crashing out here until they get up.
I love my sleep, and situations like this illustrate exactly why I’m opting not to have human kids of my own. The dogs may grow out of these phases; Miles is only 2 and Crackers is 3. Kids do this kind of shit for several years. I’m irritated enough by the inconvenience of being up when I’d rather be sleeping, so I’m probably not a good candidate for human parenthood anyway. Giving up my sleep is bad enough; I’d lose my mind if I had to give up wine and caffeine for about a year, give up my sleep for at least a decade, and trade in our fun travels for costly kid expenses. No thanks! I’ll stick with the dog mom life; I can handle this level of sacrifice.
Musings of a Dog Mom 