Stealth Dog

It was the middle of the night.  OK, 4:00 in the morning.  It was cold outside of the down comforter I snuggled beneath. The word cold does not even come close to describing the temp. It is winter, and we turn the heat off at night. COLD.   So, I awoke to hearing this whining.  Whining. WHINING.  It is coming from Chester.  Chester sleeps at the other end of the house, in a hallway. We call it his dog-cave. Don't feel too sorry for him, he really does likes it there.  It is "his" spot. On the tile floor, he has a nice soft memory foam cushion, a sage-colored-green blankie, a plastic black bucket filled with his toys, and a raised dish, with fresh water to drink. Quite a nice doggie pad.  Chester's dog cave is blocked off by a little children's gate. He could actually knock it over with a slight push from his nose, or leap over it with hardly trying ~~ but he is afraid of it.  It fell over one time and scared the crap out of him (pretty much the truth).  That actually worked to our advantage, now he won't get near it, and thinks it is evil.

Anyways.  Back to the whining.  Keith is asleep, or pretending not to hear. So,reluctantly, since the whining is not letting up,  I get out of my warm bed, and zip to the dog-cave, hugging myself the whole way, shivering.  There is Chester, sitting about two feet back from the evil fence, whining.  "Ah, buddy, do you have to go out? OK...."   I move evil gate, almost feeling sorry for the big-guy, and go to the sliding glass door.  Opening it, I stand, shivering, waiting, for him to go out and do his business.  While standing there in the friggen' freezin' air, I see him out of the corner of my eye.  He does not go out the door, but sneaks right behind me, like stealth dog, with his stuffed monkey (named squirrel) hanging from his mouth,  prancing down the hallway towards, of all places, my WARM bed!  Slamming, err, closing, the door I follow him, only to discover stealth dog, snuggled up next to Keith, on top of the fluffy down comforter, with squirrel tucked beneath his chin.   Had to "go" pretty bad did ya?  

I gave him the look, and the command for OFF.  It is weird, somewhere between evil gate and our bed, he lost his sense of hearing.  So, giving  him a reminder-tug on his collar, I pointed to the hallway, and told him to march his cute furry butt back to dog cave. Reluctantly, he slid to the floor, gave me the most pathetic look, then sauntered back to dog cave.  Back at dog cave he cocked his head.  "You forgot your squirrel, huh?" I told him to 'stay', stomped back to the bedroom, and retrieved squirrel. When he was settled in HIS bed with squirrel, I leaned evil gate back into place, and told him I would see him in a few hours.  No more whining, got it?

Truth be told. 99.999% of me thought this was pretty darn funny, and he was pretty darn smart and cute.  It would have been much easier to just crawl back into my WARM cozy bed, and snuggle with the boys for the rest of the morning hours.  HOWEVER, the other .001% part of me did not want to be dealing with whining every night. The pup has a memory like an elephant --- he never forgets.

In the morning...Keith said Chester gave him the It was worth a try look ;-), then headed out the door, because by then....he really did have to go.


P.S.   As I am rereading this post about 5 years later.  ....I smile. In all honesty I should tell you what bedtime looks like today ~~ Chester, as a pup,  may have started out spending the night in dog-cave,  but nowadays he begins his snooze by our bedside and sometime during the early morning hours he joins us atop the queen size mattress, and that is fine with us :) .