The Puppy and the Pea

Let me preface this post by saying my dog is not a prissy dog.

My dog is a 'mutt', more specifically a pure-bred collie and some boxer mutt than hoped the fence and...um...ahem, yes well.

Husband and I got her at a local pet store.  She was simply the cutest puppy in the entire world.  We were going to get a dog anyway and there she was!  Perfect and rolly polly and perfect.  (I love my dog, couldn't you tell.)

Well, puppy is now three years old.  She often still mistaken for a puppy, because her main form of greeting people is to flop over on her back, wiggle around and lick them all over their faces.

Her main purpose in life is to chase tennis balls.  Tennis balls were invented solely for her enjoyment.  She will spend hours and hours chasing them.  It doesn't matter what obstacles are in her path, rocks, holes, ditches, other dogs, small children.  She is going to get that tennis ball.  She stands two feet at the shoulder and once jumped a six foot fence trying to follow a ball that got out of the yard.  Seriously, she becomes a hairy jugernaut.

I have considered buying a motorized tennis ball chucker otherwise I'm going to throw out my rotor cuff one of these days.  Her energy in off the charts.  At our yearly vet check-up, then vet is always asks "does she run a lot?  She hasn't got an ounce of fat on her."

Ha.  There isn't a moment of the day she is not sprinting around at top speed.

Unless of course she's sleeping.  Then she weighs, not a trim, sleek forty pounds, but six hundred.  Gravity amplifies in her vicinity, her mass increases so much.  The moon is pulled out of orbit but her quiet slumbers.

But not last night.

The puppy is not allowed to sleep with us on the bed.  She sleeps in her own bed, a very nice plushy one with her own blanket.  For heaven's sake, the in-laws have a fleece covered air mattress that she uses when we stay with them!  She is not in the least deprived.

Here's another unless:  Unless either husband or I are not at home for some reason, business travel or house sitting or whatever, then she can sleep up on the bed.

So obviously, last night she got to sleep up on the bed with me.  However, to my increasing annoyance, she did not immediately turn into a white and brown black hole of zzzzzz's.

The first hour went something like this:

Puppy gets up and turns in a circle and lies down.
Puppy gets up and turns in a circle and lies down.
Puppy gets up and turns in a circle and lies down.
Puppy gets up and turns in a circle and lies down.
Puppy gets up and turns in a circle and lies down.
Puppy gets up and turns in a circle and lies down.
Puppy gets up and turns in a circle and lies down.
Puppy gets up and turns in a circle and lies down.
Puppy gets up and turns in a circle and lies down.
Puppy gets up and turns in a circle and lies down.
I say: Lie Down!
Puppy gets up and turns in a circle and lies down.
A few minutes quiet.
Puppy gets up and turns in a circle and lies down.
Puppy gets up and turns in a circle and lies down.
Puppy gets up and turns in a circle and lies down.
Puppy gets up and turns in a circle and lies down.
Puppy gets up and turns in a circle and lies down.
Puppy gets up and turns in a circle and lies down.
I say:  Lie Down! Or get off the bed!
Puppy hears:  Get off the bed!  She gets off the bed.
She goes to her plush, comfy, blanket draped, warm bed.  She lies down and sighs mightily.
She sighs her woe once more.
She sighs her woe once more.
She sighs her woe once more.
She sighs her woe once more.
She sighs her woe once more.
Me:  Alright!  Come here.
She hops up and flops down by my head.
Puppy gets up and turns in a circle and lies down.
Puppy gets up and turns in a circle and lies down.
Puppy gets up and turns in a circle and lies down.
Puppy gets up and turns in a circle and lies down.
Puppy gets up and turns in a circle and lies down.

By now I'm like, if you don't lie down and go to sleep, you're sleeping out in the living room! (Where she has a second soft plushy bed, just so she can sleep while we're watching TV.  Like I said, spoiled.)

Puppy gets up and turns in a circle and lies down.

Of course I don't have the heart to make her go sleep alone in the cold, dark living room.  So instead I give her belly scritches, she puts her cold nose in my ear and we go to sleep.

How pathetic am I?