Sunday, September 18, 2011

Sunday September 18th


Planned to write all day Friday but decided to try and take things easier this weekend.  I've had to tutor both days this weekend so I won’t have much time to myself, and I'm down in the up/down fatigue excitement cycle that a long project involves.  I don't usually write on the blog much then, but I am trying to force myself to post every other day. 

Bink misbehaved Thursday night; howled for a while after bedtime and then began clawing up the box.  We have a box that we use to keep him inside the kitchen; a cardboard box, and on top of it a large plastic box containing his food, leash, playthings and sundry.  There used to be two cardboard boxes and then the plastic but he’s done so much clawing and eating damage to the first box we’ve taken it away.  Now he’s on the second box.  Some nights he goes quietly to bed and makes no fuss.  Other nights he makes considerable fuss.  You can hear him clawing and biting at the box from the bedroom.  Both wife and I got up a few times to try and stop him but he wouldn’t relent.  In the end the only solution was to go to bed and come in the morning and pick up all the shards of cardboard his work has left.  Then he's tired all day (from having spent the evening working on the box) and doesn't sleep that night.  And the cycle continues.

You might wonder why we keep him in the kitchen for the night at all.  We’ve tried letting him roam; the problem is that he will see one of the neighbor’s cat (or sense, more likely) outside the front door or back den windows at 4 in the AM and howl and how and howl.  The front door hallway is right next to the hall where our bedroom is and that howl shoots down the long hallway like a rocket.  No sleeping through that.  The ideal would be to somehow train him not to howl at things during the night (especially cats—burglars might be okay) but we don’t know how to do that. 

After all the fun on Thursday night, wife bought a pet gate for the kitchen which I then installed, using my many macho powers of...installing things.  So far the gate has not provoked his wrath--no nights of clawing and howling have yet occurred.  I don't know if that's because he's been tired again at night or if somehow the gate makes him less aggravated than the box.  We'll see.

4 comments:

JMW said...

Bink is insanely cute, but I will never be a pet person, for all the reasons in this post, and several more.

Dezmond said...

Gates are also used to corral little children. We have four gates strategically placed around our house to keep out child contained. Also locks on all drawers. And devices on all door handles. The dog does not like the gates, but sometimes they can be used to protect him from the child.

Subliminal Gary said...

I don't know about any of that, but you really need to do something about your space bar. It must be driving you insane.

ANCIANT said...

The joys of Bink far outweigh the drawbacks, JMW. It's just that the joys don't make for great blog material. They're fleeting and subtle and accretive. But you're right, for sure, it's a lot of hassle. I'm sure children are exponentially more hassle, Dez. I support your many gates. And your space bar use.