Frustrating Night

I’ve been sick for the last few days and because of it I was having a hard time dealing with Brenda last night. She was in her crate and wouldn’t stop barking. I tried letting her out while she was wearing a muzzle. For a while she splayed out on me—her stomach on mine as my feet rested on Ben’s lap as we all watched TV.

Then all I wanted to do was take some NyQuil and go to sleep so I got up to take her outside. NYC is going through a cold streak right now and it was about 20 degrees last night. I put three layers on, my warmest jacket, cap and gloves and went to get Brenda. While I was getting ready, she ran back into her crate and as I reached for her she snarled at me. She was still wearing her muzzle so I gingerly took it off thinking she was angry at me for putting it on her.

That didn’t help. She was very upset with me as I tried to pull her out of her crate. I was fed up and decided to go to bed even though she hadn’t gone to the bathroom in hours. Ben stayed up to watch TV and kept Porter and Sadie in the living room with him. It was a special treat to have the bedroom all to myself. Ben left all three dogs in the living room when he went to bed and they didn’t seem to mind…until 4:30 in the morning.

I awoke to Brenda screaming in her crate. I put Ben’s green puffy jacket on over my robe, slipped my feet into down slippers and took her to the roof. I opened the door and let her run out. She peed and ran back to me.

I was hungry so I decided to snack on the bread pudding the Ben made a few days before. As soon as I entered the kitchen Brenda squirmed past the baby gate behind me and started barking. I fed her some of her own leftovers since she has had a poor appetite the last few days.

We were all able to get a few more hours of sleep—even though Porter and Sadie were now on my bed.