Dog Story II: A not-cute thing Bella Did

So you remember that cute, tuckered-out, dog from Sunday night? Well here's how that story ends:

Exhausted from her long weekend of play, Bella is out cold by 5 PM. She's so tired that she doesn't want to go for a walk, and when we put her out to go to the bathroom, so barely has the energy to stagger a few steps from the door to pee. Aside from a few quick breaks to roll over, stretch, scarf down some dinner and freak out at the sound of a fork on a plate, she sleeps straight through the evening. When we go to bed she doesn't even come into the bedroom, staying out in the living room until around 11 PM or so.

But then, around 11 she does get up. Maybe because in her haste to resume napping earlier she neglected to finish her doggie business, or maybe just because she has been in a deep sleep for 6 hours, she starts to wander around the house. "Click, click, click, click, {walking across carpet}, click, click...."

Shortly thereafter she makes it to the bedroom, where she alternates sitting on each side of the bed, licking whatever elbows, knees and backs poke out from the sheets and occasionally emitting little half-whines. Several times Beth or I tell her to go to bed, and send her to her corner where she dutifully lies down for up to 26 seconds before resuming her vigil at our side. Eventually I decide to let her outside, which is usually the solution when she won't sleep, but instead of running straight for her "poop corner" in the backyard, she just lies down and looks around as if thinking "what a lovely evening."

I can't leave her out all night and I don't want to let her take her sweet ass time coming in since I have to wake up at 6:15, so after a couple minutes I throw on some winter boots and march out in boots and boxers to try to lead her to the corner. She follows along, and even goes right for the corner when told, where she eats a moth. She wags her tail and looks at me proudly as if to say "look at that! You never even told me to do that trick before and I did it the first time!"

After a few more minutes, I lead her inside, but its now clear that the problem with Bella is that she has no interest in sleeping. The next three hours pass in a mix of clicking toenails, licked elbows, muffled whines and half-whispered half-shouted commands to go to bed. I don't remember exactly what happened in the end. Maybe Beth let Bella outside again with better results, maybe I landed that kick I aimed at Bella's noggin and knocked her out cold and maybe she just finally got tired again. But it was sometime after 2:00 when she finally settled down and let us get some sleep.

So thanks for that, Bella. I hope you enjoyed spending all day napping in your crate on Monday. Because I definitely didn't spend the day in an 8-hour training session daydreaming of ways of getting petty revenge.