For a few days a week, I suffer from lack of sleep. This is due to the fact that our four-legged child has taken over our bed. Something, we said wouldn’t happen but has. She now weighs 60 pounds and besides the fact that she has to sleep between myself and hubby, she also has to sleep on my legs at times. But the past couple of weeks, she has been getting up all hours of the night barking at something. This means one of us usually gets up to see if there’s something going on outside we need to check on, or just to let her out to get the barking over with so she will go back to sleep.
Once upon a time, we said she would become an outside dog, but that didn’t last very long either. She does go outside, sometimes a thousand times a day if we are home, but she is for all intents and purposes, an inside dog. To top it off, she thinks she is a lap dog and will jump in one of our laps at any given time.
We are seriously considering installing a new door so we can also install a doggie door for her to go in and out of without us having to let her out every 10 minutes or so. Our current doors we let her in and out of, are mostly glass so a doggie door won’t work on those. We never use the front door so that’s out as well.
I have suggested getting her a companion dog but David hasn’t been keen on that idea. He says then we will just have two dogs in our bed! If she had a companion, they would be playing all day and would most likely be tired when we got home. At least that’s the logic I’ve tried to explain but so far, David’s not biting.
There is one good thing though. If our power happens to go out and we forget to reset the clock, she always, without fail gets up around 5 a.m. every day. Though this is an hour earlier than we want to get up, at least we know we won’t be late because she is going to get us up. She doesn’t understand that we want to sleep in on weekends because she gets us at 5 a.m. those days too.
I think she’s not getting enough exercise because we work all day and she sleeps all day while we are gone. When we get home she is ready to play and we are not. Plus when it’s cold she’s not too keen on staying outside for very long.
During the warmer months I walk outside every morning with her following me, but in the colder months, I get on the treadmill instead because I can’t handle the cold or bundling up. Though she has seemed as if she was interested in getting on the treadmill with me, it just doesn’t work and she gets scared so that’s out of the question.
A lot of things scare her. Sneezes for instance. She will immediately jump in the person’s lap not sneezing. Can’t figure out why. She doesn’t like bad weather and has to be in our laps or under the bed.
We got her when she was about 12 weeks old and we certainly haven’t mistreated her, unless over spoiling can be mistreatment, but some things which bother her make you wonder whether or not she was mistreated. I guess they can remember things from being a puppy and we have no way of knowing how she was treated during that time before we rescued her.
She demands attention at times and heaven forbid that you pay too much attention to your phone when she feels it is her time. She will paw at the phone and actually try and knock it out of your hand. Same thing for a book or magazine.
She whines as well when she wants attention and you are not giving it to her. Sometimes I just wish she could actually talk because we can’t figure out what she is wanting with her whining when it is not attention she’s seeking. At times, she sounds as if she is talking but neither of us have mastered doggie speak yet.
She is quite the con artist too. She gets a treat in the morning from David and when he leaves, I have to give her one as well. I just can’t resist her face. When we eat, she also expects to be given some of our food. We’ve found there’s very little that she won’t eat as long as we are eating it.
Yet, no matter the fact that she is one spoiled rotten dog, she walks on our hearts, just like our children do. We want to protect her when she’s scared, nurture her when she is hurt and make sure she has everything she needs. She comforts us when we feel down and makes us laugh with her antics. She sometimes helps us exercise and tries to do planks with David in the morning.
Her face is pitiful when we leave in the mornings and she is ecstatic to see us when we get home. In return, she doesn’t ask much, only that we feed her, give her all the attention she wants and take her on rides sometime. To us, this is a small price for so much love. I can never understand how people can mistreat them and especially not how they can give them up for no real reason. To us, they are members of our family.
Dogs give us a good example of unconditional love, much like that of our Savior. ©2017

VICTORIA SIMMONS is an author, columnist, motivational speaker, minister and publisher of The Georgia Post/Byron Buzz. Contact her at: vsimmons54@gmail.com