A Dog's Day

Do you ever feel totally exhausted and yet feel like you've done nothing at all? Yea, me too. Today is one of those days and I decided to analyze the day to see exactly WHY I'm so tired.

Around 3:30 am I decided it was time to shut down the computer, because the storm was rolling in, and being on Claiborne Electric you learn real fast that if there's a storm, there is also a power outage. I let the dogs go out to potty one last time before going to bed. Since Wednesday (Ashlyn's Dachsund) decided to spend the night I had to play "separate the dogs". Chloe (Cliff's Pomeranian) was confined in the kid's bathroom and Wednesday was confined to the laundry room. I do this because Wednesday is not a house dog really, and I don't trust her to not "mess" the house plus she and Chloe get to wrestling, and I didn't want to listen to them, or anything they might break in the process. Chloe is confined each night because she WILL mess the house during the night if left unsupervised and yet will hold it all night when confined...go figure. I think she is impressed with  my psychotic ramblings as I walk hunched over picking up her trail. Yes.. TRAIL. She will NOT poop in one spot, she imagines herself to be some lunatic version of the easter bunny leaving little pieces here and there.

So, I get the dogs pottied and confined, planning to go to sleep, and enjoy the storm. NOT HAPPENING. Isabella, with all of her 200lb radiant glory, went into full on panic mode. She ran from one end of the house to the other, trailing massive quantities of drool everywhere, panting as if Satan were on her heels, and begging to be killed. Whenever she hit the end of the hall, outside of the kid's bathroom, Chloe panicked and would start barking furiously. Whenever Max (Yorkie) hears a bark, car horn, knock, rattle, frog fart, etc... he barks, so naturally if Chloe alerted to something, he felt he was lax in his protective duties and immediately launched himself from his perch on the back of the couch and proceeded to run through the house, barking loudly to display his manly protectiveness of the household and scare off these invisible or fictitious intruders. Maggie (Maltese) is not to be left looking foolish and lazy, so whenever King Max barks, his loyal sidekick must also bark.

I announce to the dogs that it's only a storm. GO TO SLEEP. 15 minutes later I must come through and comfort said psychotic dogs and proclaim GO TO SLEEP and again... and again... and again. Wednesday slept through every bit of it. Psychotic dogs and humans are no threat to a doggie thrilled to be indoors on a nice comfy towel.

Somewhere around 7am the dogs finally accepted that maybe I do know what I'm talking about OR were just too exhausted to continue with the madness...Whatever! They all decided that they could now go to sleep. It took me 45 minutes to believe them.

I have an internal alarm that goes off between noon and 1pm regardless of how tired I am. I stagger towards the kitchen for my morning caffeine boost (Diet Dr. Pepper) but alas that wasn't happening because the psycho bunch were now rested and ready for their morning outing. I open the door and release 5 flashes of fur into the world to go do their business. NOW I can have my coke.....and, by God, a well deserved cigarette. Okay, so I lie, I had two smokes! I open the front door and announce INSIDE and one by one furry bodies come inside.

Maggie is always the last to exit the house and she's always first to enter...BUT we have to stop at the 2nd step from the door and await the formal invitation like vampires. "Come in Maggie" I say in a now semi-human voice and she comes inside. Max flies past us both. Chloe is now sitting on the step awaiting her invitation. "Come in Chloe" and Chloe comes in, Max flies out. "Wednesday are you in or out???" Wednesday enters as Max darts past us both. Finally Isabella looks at me as if to say "Do I get an invite?" *SIGH* "Come in Izzy" and she comes inside as Max flies back out. Now Max is waiting for his invite. "Come in Max" And he rushes indoors and hops on the back of the couch. I think Max believes himself to be a Wal-Mart greeter. Parker is now sitting on my steps whining. The monster in me loomed up and said "I hate it for you Parker, you're on your own".

Parker is the Dachsund of the man down the hill. This week he's in love with Wednesday. The week before it was Chloe and the week before that it was Maggie. He's very fickle with his affections. He spends the day whining or knocking at my door. I've tried explaining that women respond better if he would appear slightly less desperate. He doesn't listen. Did I mention, he's male? I think that has something to do with his hearing problems.

Around two the whole "outside, inside, welcome to my home, and YOU go away" routine is repeated. I know this seems sudden but after holding it all night they need two trips out in the morning to get it all done because they spend too much time socializing and sniffing butts. I don't get that. While I'm sleeping are they swapping butts and then sniffing each morning to be sure they each got the right ones back? Do they go around back where we can't see and say "DUDE!!! You got my butt. You're gonna get us busted by the humans with stunts like that. I know they aren't real bright but seriously, man, we can't take the chance!"

At 2:20pm I leave to go pick up the Munchkin from school. We decide that while we're so close to the Rehab we'll stop by and visit Papaw Bill. Headed home we stop off at the C-Store for Icees, Subway for Dinner, and McDonalds for Ashlyn because she's not about to eat a sandwich. We arrive home shortly after 4pm and find the front door standing WIDE OPEN. Zoey announces, "IT WASN'T ME! I didn't touch the door". I'm wondering where the dogs are. All but one dog was tucked inside and right now I can't remember which it was but I want to say it was Chloe. We all go indoors.

THEN I get smart and send all dogs outside to potty and we all sit down to eat our sandwiches.

The "outside, inside, come in, welcome to my home" process has been repeated 3 more times since then. One of those trips resulted in Izzy going on the lead. She looked dead at me, shook her head, and flew downhill towards the lake. Yea, right. Like I'm gonna chase after her. When she came home she was tied out. She hates that so for the next couple of days she'll be really good and come right back indoors when I yell INSIDE.....of course, only after the proper invitation has been given.

I also took time to dispense dog food like a good servant should. Wednesday decided to go bowl surfing and flung the dog food across the entire kitchen. His 4-legged fans all gave him 2 paws up. I growled and began cleaning up the mess. I suspect the demons were holding score cards up behind my back...I hope I got high marks, being as how I'm entirely success oriented.

Izzy, not to be outdone, slapped the bowl with her paw in some new form of doggie olympic food tossing. I growled. There were no paws up on that one because now they realized that the psycho lady was attempting to speak their language so they scattered the area and each gave me disapproving looks from their hiding spots. I swear I saw little bubbles pop from above their heads "If this chair wasn't holding me back, I'd be all over this nutcase?"   "Ohhh, the lady is gonna get it now!"     "Can you believe the nerve?"     "You ARE gonna pick that up right?"    "Dang, who peed in her Cheerios?"

I've gone to the bathroom, and the dogs all come to observe.... "Why aren't you going outside like the rest of us?"

I've gone to the fridge ..... "Yea, whatcha got good in there?"

I opened a new pack of smokes...."Was that a rattle?" "Yea, that was paper rattling!" "Is it a treat?" "Oh man, is she breaking out the treat?." "Humph, no man she's just teasing us. Bet she won't find it so amusing tonight when SHE THINKS she's gonna get some sleep" Followed by unified doggie snickering.

I get dressed for bed ..... and my butt gets sniffed :(     "Oh man, someone messed up switching this one out. How many times have I said, no swapping with the human"

At this moment, I have one dog curled up beside me on the loveseat with my school books. I have one dog asleep on the couch. One dog asleep on back of the couch. One dog curled up asleep on one of the throw pillows from the couch, in the corner. The last is sleeping on the floor under my feet.

Heck, no wonder I'm tired. Now someone needs to remind me.... WHY do I like dogs?