Petey's typical bedtime is sometime between dark and 9:00. As a rule, Petey wants someone to go to be with him. He's smart enough to understand routines so for instance, even though it is dark before we eat supper, he won't start badgering us to go to bed until that is complete. Most of the time, he'll even let us watch a little TV or a
DVD. But somehow, that dog knows when 9:00 comes and he's
determined to go to bed. I've blogged before about how he'll start wanting to go out about 9:00 since that, to him, is the key to going to bed. Most of the time, we'll let him out about 9:00 or so and start out getting ready for bed routines. Even though we are not in bed, that seems to satisfy him.
This week, however, life was different in our household, but no one consulted Petey. John was off from work all week and I was off Thursday and Friday. We thought Petey would be thrilled for the extra time with us. Not quite. On Wednesday night, John and I had no real reason to rush off to bed. We could sleep in on Thursday. We watched a
DVD until after 9:00, which was most upsetting to the poor dog. I let him out, and then noticed an unfinished spider solitaire game on the computer. I decided to finish that before bed. It seemed fairly simple.
Petey flopped himself down beside me at the computer waiting for me to finish. I'm usually the sleepyhead and Petey knows this, thus I am the mark. The game was taking a little longer than I expected. I kept undoing plays and trying new things to try and win. After a bit, Petey realized that I wasn't going to stop anytime soon, so he went to get John. I couldn't see Petey's face, but I think it was his tattle tale face. I heard John telling him that he couldn't make me do anything either, so he should just get used to it.
Then I heard the back door open. John had let Petey out again. I was still
determined to finish that spider game. (It is addictive!) Petey came back in and flopped down beside me and started sighing. Over and over he would sigh these heavy sighs so that there was no misunderstanding his disdain. I continued to play cards.
Finally he began pawing my leg and doing his best, pleading face. Lucky for him, I'd just figured out the key to the game and finished up. By this time it was something horribly late like, 10:15!!!!! But we managed to survive the night, even though we were so late actually getting to bed.
Then, on Thursday night after a very relaxing afternoon, John and I were not ready to go to bed at 9:00. Again, Petey was not consulted and was not on board with the plan. I had the bright idea to just put him in the bed once he came back in. That worked!! For about 20 minutes, it worked. Then he got up MAD! Petey does not like to be tricked. It is a good thing that dog can't talk or we might have learned a few new words.
Anyway, after laughing at him for a while, I caved and went to bed. John had found some movie to watch on
satellite. That was OK, since Petey usually only requires one human to actually be in bed with him. I must have been sleepier than I thought because I zonked out right away and John relayed the rest of this story to me in the morning.
After about 20 or 30 minutes Petey got up and came in to the living room. He wanted in the recliner, and he wanted in the recliner alone. Petey is a small dog, weighing only about 12 pounds. He could be stepped on and hurt badly, but he does not understand this. He is a demanding little thing and will not be
dissuaded. John finally moved to the couch to watch the rest of the movie, giving Petey sole control of the recliner.
We knew that often we would find Petey in the morning asleep in the recliner, but we thought that he moved about the house all night long, sort of like a patrol. Now we are beginning to think that he gets up from the bed and goes straight to the recliner. We don't know for sure, and we probably won't ever know. We don't really care enough to know to follow him around all night and find out. We will however, try to go to bed at a reasonable time tonight.
