Get Outta My Bed

October 29th, 2012

Well, the latest issue that I have had with Drake is the vicious bark in my bed.  He had slept in my bed since the second or third day that he lived here.  Lately he has started this habit of jumping up like he heard something and barking viciously.  I have been trying to figure out why.  Does he smell the other dogs in my bed and feel threatened or angry?  Does he see light through his eye lids or on the ceioing?  Is he having some kind of flash backs or dreams?  Why?

What I had been doing, unsuccessfully, is pulling him to me.  Then turning his tail towards where he had been standing.  Having his face towards me, telling him no, no.  It would work for two or three minutes and he would pull away, put his head towards the ceiling and bark so vicious.  I just kept repeating the same thing over and over, expecting different results any minute.   Not know what to do, I just tried to control the situation until he would fall asleep.  A cowards way out, but I just didn't know what to do.  I thought if I could just figure out why he was doing it, I could figure out the right way to handle the situation.

Today what a very trying day.  By 8:00 AM I was exhausted from him.  He was spinning in the family room.  Barking uncontrollably outside, miserable upstairs in his room.  I tried to put him back in my bed thinking maybe he was still tired.  Not the correct answer.  As the day went on he improved.  When I took him outside in the afternoon he played for a couple of hours and let me get a little work done outside.  The tension eased up a little.  By 5:30  PM when April called to pick up Tejas from his grooming, he was playing upstairs in his room, very quietly.  I asked my grandson, Justus, to listen for him while I ran to pick up Tejas.  I didn't want to disturb his quiet play by taking him with me.  When I returned, he was still playing quietly.

Becky, one of the people interested in buying Cisco my donkey, had called about 3:30 PM to see about coming over to meet him.  I had told her of course, even though my day had been awful and I really did not want to mess with that.  I had been trying to locate a really good home for him since I got Drake and realized that he was going to take up so much time.  I really liked Becky and knew she did not have a lot of time off.  However, as the day went forward, she had called me numerous times having trouble getting off, hooking up the new trailer hitch, with the lights on the trailer and just anything that could go wrong.  It was dark when she finally got on her way.  Drake was already trying to go to sleep and I knew I had to go get Cisco.  When she got here it would be dark and I did not know how long it would take to get him loaded.  He finally went to sleep and I wondered what the odds of him staying asleep without me in bed would be.  He had the habit of touching me all night.  If he couldn't feel me, he would wake up and start barking.  So I could only hope he would get to sleep deep enough for me to have the time to take car of Cisco.

I left him laying there and asked Justus to come and get me if he started barking real loud, but to handle it if he could.  I went got Cisco and when Becky arrived she decided to buy him.  By the time I got back inside the house it was 9:00 PM and he was barking and up.  I tried to calm him and go back to bed, but he was irritated.  He wouldn't settle down.  Kept barking and jumping out of bed.  Good ole Tejas, the boss of the house, was now getting irritated.  Trying to sleep over on his little bed on the floor, he was starting to growl.  As Drake walked by him barking, Tejas lunched at him with  big bark.  Just knocked Drake over.  Of course Drake hadn't heard the bark and getting knocked over just heightened his agitation.  So he started barking even louder.  I picked him up, hoping to put him in bed and calm him down.  Uh oh, he bite me.  Not a pressure bite, but a his mouth on my hand and his mouth closing.  I told him no, no and jumped up out of frustration, kicking Tejas out of my room.  Misdirected anger, but I was angry and knew better than to show Drake. 

Before throwing Tejas out, instinctively I had put Drake on the floor.  When I returned from throwing Tejas out, I noticed that Drake was suddenly calm.  Walking around in my bedroom.  I went over and closed the doggie gate into his playroom  Then I went over to the bed watching Drake.  As much as I believe in getting to the reason of the behavior and trying to prevent it from that angle.  I also know that some times you just stumble onto the answer.  Like I did when I watched Tejas roll him.  After about ten minutes he came over and calmly asked to go to be.  He laid down and was asleep in another two minutes.  Unbelievable.  Tejas had done it again.  Indirectly he had corrected Drake, making me angry enough to throw the little pain in the a$$ out of my bed.  Exactly what the dog whisperer himself would have told me to do a week ago.