Trotting the Dog

We’ve lived in this house for just over a year now, and Flacko has not been at all happy with our purchase of it. The property taxes are too high, the house is too small and and the temperature goes from Arctic Cold to Tropical Heat depending on what floor you’re on. Wait, that’s not why Flacko doesn’t like it; that’s why I don’t like it.

Flacko’s reasons for hating the house may be less obvious, but he still finds it necessary to demonstrate his disapproval by refusing to go to bed alone. And when I say “alone”, I mean “with two other dogs, ten beds, eleven blankets, and one giant plastic bone-shaped bin containing exactly forty-six toys.” Yes, maybe I don’t have anything better to do than count the toys this minute.

At any rate, the bedtime ritual used to be that Chris would take them out for last call. The dogs would then run up to their bedroom, and while Paco pranced around and begged, Flacko would dive into his house. Chris distributed treats to everyone, pulled the string on the musical baby toy hanging from the doorknob, and departed to the strains of “Winnie-the-Pooh.”

Then the routine began to fall apart. First the Winnie-the-Pooh toy broke, and our beloved Target no longer carried it. Then Flacko began to learn that going to bed before midnight was something only wussy dogs did, and cried and cried when we tried to convince him otherwise. (Evidently, crying was not a wussy thing to do. Go figure.)

This was not the worst part, however.

The worst part was when he found out that he could scrabble at the door of his room and eventually, because our ears were bleeding from the noise, we would come downstairs and try to placate him.

We tried ignoring him first, of course. That just made him angrier. Then we tried putting him to bed later, which was met with approval by the dog and disapproval by the people who had to go to work the next day to earn money to keep the dog. At last, in desperation, we tried crating him.

All the dogs like the crate, and jump into it willingly when we get ready for a trip (although it may be more because they’re afraid of being left behind than because they actually enjoy going places). Being crated helped quiet Flacko down for a while, but then we went to visit our in-laws. During that disastrous trip, Flacko escaped twice from the gated area and then cried all night after we crated him. When we came home, he decided the crate was no longer acceptable as sleeping quarters.

At our annual exam, we asked the vet what we could do to help Flacko get over his issues. She suggested putting on a radio at night, or letting him sleep with a piece of our clothing.

“Gosh, I really don’t know what else to say,” she said. “I mean, my dogs tell me where to sleep, and they all just get in bed with me.”

We were unwilling to go this route, because I already have allergies to the dogs and enough trouble sleeping without worrying about whether I’ve squished a chihuahua as I roll around. And we didn’t have a radio that we could try out yet.

So the next night, as Flacko’s wails began and the nail scrabbling started, I made Chris bring one of his t-shirts to Flacko.

“Well? Did he like it?” I asked, when Chris returned to bed.

Chris shrugged. “He just gave me a look like, ‘What the fuck is this?’”

Apparently the t-shirt wasn’t enough to appease Flacko, because shortly thereafter, the scrabbling and scraping began again.

The next night, after their last trip outdoors, Chris leashed up Flacko.

“C’mon, boy, let’s go,” he urged.

“What are you doing?” I called from upstairs.

“I have a new idea!” he said. “I’m making him walk around the coffee table three times on the leash.”

“Time for bed,” he said to Flacko, and led him to the bedroom.

Chris came upstairs.

“I don’t think three times around the coffee table is enough exercise,” I remarked.

“Well, we can try it for a while. Every time he scrabbles, he’s going to have to put on the collar and leash and go around the coffee table. At the very least, maybe he’ll get used to the leash.”

Scrabbling began soon after, and Chris turned to me. “You want to take this time or the next one?”

I thought it over. Maybe…maybe there wouldn’t be a next time? “You do this one,” I offered.

Chris bounded out of bed, and I heard the rattling of the collar as he put it on Flacko.

“Let’s go,” he said.

They went around the coffee table a few times, and then I heard Chris tell Flacko to sit. “Good boy. Back to bed, now.”

When Chris returned, I said, “Did you just go around three times? It sounded like more.”

“Well, he kept pulling on the leash, so I trotted him around until he could go three times without pulling and then I made him sit.”

“Does he seem any better or more tired?”

Chris considered this. “Nah,” he said truthfully. “Just kind of confused. Befuddled, actually.”

A few minutes later, Flacko started scraping at the door again, and I got up.

Flacko seemed to have been abused by his previous owner, whoever that was, and was usually scared of getting his collar and leash on. Tonight when I opened the door, he came immediately to me and raised his head so I could put his collar on.

“Good boy,” I said.

Paco, normally wrapped tightly in a blanket by this time, was sitting upright on the futon and watching closely. Apparently Flacko was giving a very entertaining performance tonight.

I took Flacko downstairs to the living room, where he willingly trotted three times around the coffee table with me. Then I made him sit and stay, and then told him it was bedtime.

Because he’d been good, I gave him a treat. Naturally, the rustling of the treat package roused Paco, who leaped off the futon and began dancing around my legs.

“Okay, okay, you can have a piece, too,” I said, and gave Paco one. Then, because I had to be fair, I stuffed a piece of treat under another blanket at Mina, who stared at me balefully and indicated that she’d really rather be asleep at 1 AM, thankyouverymuch.

I closed the door and went upstairs to bed. This last trip seemed to have been what he was waiting for, as he settled in and quieted down at last.

Well, until two hours later, when he started crying urgently again.

I lay still in bed, pretending I was asleep. If Flacko woke up Chris, Chris would take care of it. Chris may have been trying the same ploy, but he got up before I could “accidentally” wake him up by “rolling over in my sleep.”

I pretended I’d been woken up by Chris getting out of bed, and called to him, “Maybe Flacko needs to poop? He hasn’t gone all day.”

“Okay,” Chris said.

He trotted Flacko around the table three times, then let him outside.

“Did he poop?” I asked, when Chris had put the dog and himself back into their respective beds.

“I think so,” he said. “I didn’t go out with him, but he seemed to stay out as long as a poop would be.”

The next morning, I investigated the yard carefully. Lo and behold–a giant (for a chihuahua, anyway) poopie was reposing quietly where a Flacko had released it early that morning.

Posted by: Supersonic Jane | January 25, 2005 | 2:32 pm
Posted in: Dogs