Sleep

I started writing this post Sunday morning, after a bad night's sleep Saturday night.  Read on people, uh dogs.

I love my fur babies but damn they don't help me have a good night's sleep.  Last night was typical.

At 3:30am Mr. Fox bolted off the bed and out the dog door barking his head off.  I laid there thinking he'll be done in a minute.  Nope.  Got up to get him in at which time Scruffy ran out the dog door and began barking.  As I am standing at the door with the cold air whisper yelling, "MR. FOX!  BAD DOG!" Husband, from the bed, says, "Bad Dog" and in they both trot.  &^%&$ dogs!

Now, that wouldn't be too bad if I could fall back to sleep right away like Husband does.  But no, no I can''t and part of the reason is because Scruffy, in her new relaxed state, decided to lay next to me expecting copious amounts of petting and rubbing and any time I slowed down or stopped she gave me the nose under my hand.  I get it dog.  I'll keep going since I'm not sleeping anyway.  After a good half hour of this she seemed content enough to have me stop.  I'm in the clear I thought, and can try to fall asleep again.

Not so fast.  Along came Shaggy, the best cat.  He now expected his fair share of rubbing.  He decided to put himself on my chest.  He's 20lbs.  At least he purred.  I do love the purring.  It really is calming.  After another 20 minutes, I decided to try and roll ever so slightly so he'd sort of fall off to the side and I could just keep my arm on him.  He got up and left.  Finally, I rolled over AND COULDN'T SLEEP!!!  It must've been close to 5am when I finally fell asleep again.

This morning I am wondering why I care weather the cat and dog or comfortable?  OMG!  Something is wrong with me!

Apparently something isn't wrong with me.  We didn't open Saturday's mail until Sunday after I typed the above and received this:

It say's 'excessive dog barking is a nuisance to your neighbors.'

I looked at Husband and said that's it, we have to get the bark collar.  I've thought of this for a while and am not surprised we got this in mail  we have apartments that border our yard and who wants to be woken up at 3 am every night.  I know you're thinking 'why not just close the dog door?'  I wish I could but I have Shaggy, the best cat, who will go insane if he can't go out at night and hunt trash. 

Mr. Fox in his new accessory.

Husband, the real softie in the house, tried this out on himself first and said it just feels like a pinch.  Mr. Fox got pinched twice and that was the end of that.  No more barking.  Now I have to work on Scruffy.  She's smaller and as my mother has said, trainable.  My mother, ace dog trainer, has said that Mr. Fox is untrainable :(  I know, he's bad, very impulsive but leaps and bounds better than when we rescued him from his life on the street.  I took him on a walk with the collar and it worked quite well in his two usual spots where he goes insane (after walking the same way for a year and a half).  He got excited but not psycho.  This thing doesn't just pinch him willy nilly, so that makes my guilt feel better.  Please don't yell at me - we've been at a loss with this boy and doing the best we can.