Dottie's Anxious Weekend

Poor, simple Dottie...a dog with the easiest dog life a dog has ever had. She doesn't have any responsibilities. She gets showered with attention. She has two full bins of toys. She has another bag of toys in the closet. She regularly gets treats even though her only consistent trick is "sit." When did sitting become a rewarded trick? Even though Dottie has the luxuries of a doggy princess, she's scared. She's scared of suitcases. She's scared of the color red. She's scared of groceries. She's scared of Kelsey or me when we first arrive home--greeting us not like a normal happy dog, but greeting us with a nervous, guarded trepidation.

A young Dottie, scared of a pine cone. She eventually befriended the pine cone.

She's also skeptical of anything new brought into the home--be it a new dog toy, a decorative pillow, some mail. Dottie performs a ritual when anything new is brought into the house. She'll actively avoid whatever the new object is. For instance when we buy her a new toy we say, "Here Dottie. Here is your new dog toy that looks exactly like every other dog toy you have. You shouldn't be scared of this toy." Then we put the toy on the floor. Dottie will run into the other room. Then she'll slowly army crawl back into the room. If we look at her, she'll run back out of the room. She'll continue to try and slink into the room until she gets close to the new toy without notice. When she arrives at the toy, she plants her back legs and cranes her neck towards the toy, taking in big sniffs of this potentially dangerous object. After a couple of minutes if the toy does not eat her, snap at her, or cause her any harm at all, she begrudgingly accepts it as something that belongs in the house.

Dottie never did learn to love this cardboard cutout of a cat Kelsey insisted on keeping for some reason.

This is generally a cute and harmless exercise. It only becomes obnoxious when the item has natural movement and Dottie takes a few days to accept it--such as the curtains on the backdoor. When the curtains were new, Dottie wouldn't go outside without being picked up and thrown outside. Then she wouldn't come back inside in fear that the curtains would envelope her and whisk her away to the unknown.

Dottie stretches, sniffs, evaluates.

While Dottie irrationally fears almost everything, her natural dog instincts create a desire in her to protect. She'll bark at the doorbell and run at the door, only to run away as soon as the doorbell ringer walks inside. Over time, as the three of us have settled into our lives, Dottie has deferred protection of Kelsey to me. We've developed an understanding that as long as I am here, Dottie can relax and I'll ward off any harrowing predators, stop any thieves. But when I'm gone, poor Dottie has to step in and protect her Mama.

Dottie on the edge of the bed, standing guard. She will be this way all night, vigilant.

She does a decent job protecting Kelsey during the day. Dottie paces around the house and makes sure no strangers or new inanimate objects sneaked into our various rooms. But night is scary. Kelsey falls asleep and Dottie stands vigilant guard at the side of the bed. She sits and shakes and growls at each house noise (or ghosts...the noises could be ghosts), each click of the clock, each snore. Dottie stays up all night, anxious, ready to attack a prowler. She works her nerves into a cobbled mess. She wakes Kelsey up every hour on the hour just to make sure Kelsey's alive. Dottie wants outside every two hours to make sure the backyard has not filled with vagrants or cats or vagrant cats.

Then morning comes. The sun rises. Light floods the room. But the light does not witness a peaceful scene. Dottie has not slept all night. She's frazzled, unkempt. Kelsey has not slept much thanks to Dottie's intermittent life-checks. She's tired, annoyed.

Morning comes and Dottie rests.

That was the scene at our house this weekend. I was in Chicago, forcing Dottie to become Guard Dottie. Dottie stayed up all night Friday. When morning came, her frayed nerves and exhaustion caused her to throw up all over the hallway. Then she ran into the living room and tiredly pooped all over the carpet (which she does not normally do) even though she'd been let outside four times throughout the night. Kelsey, herself tired and not yet wanting to be awake, forced to clean up dog waste that early, was not very happy. She was even less happy when Dottie, seeing Kelsey was awake, passed out on the couch and slept for four hours, satisfied her mama made it through the dark night, alive and well.