Tuesday Topics #24 - Two Dog Night

Tonight after puppy group, we bring Montego home for the next few days. Carrie has already advised heavy use of the baby gate. I definitely plan to utilize it, along with the x-pen which came in handy when we Poppy-sat last December.

My chief concern is night time. Unlike the photo above, after coming home from our trip to Arcata, we didn't continue to let Cabana sleep with us (not one or two Cabanas). She sleeps loose downstairs in our family room, on the ottoman. I am a super light sleeper, so the slightest sound wakes me up. If Cabana slept in our room, I would wake up with every scratch, tag jingle, and snore (Cabana snores very loudly--her snores wake me up even from downstairs with our bedroom door closed).

Montego's puppy raiser says that Montego does NOT like his crate, so he sleeps on tie down next to her bed at night. I guess I can deal with having him sleep in our room for a few nights, but I feel so guilty that he gets to sleep in our room while Cabana isn't allowed to. So do I let both dogs sleep in our room? Or should I TRY crating Montego at night (he needs to learn to be in his crate without fussing, after all), and put the crate next to Cabana's ottoman, so Cabana can give him a little company?

I know it will work out, one way or another. But I'll take any helpful tidbits, on sleeping arrangements AND other two-dog-management tips. My other concern is that I'll be consumed by guilt when I take Montego to the grocery store and leave poor Cabana at home. Talk about transferring your own feelings onto the dog, though--surely Cabana can handle being left home by herself for 20 minutes, right? I guess it just brings up all those awful childhood traumas of feeling left out at some point, like being the only kid not invited to Kim Kiley's birthday party, or never being chosen by the teacher to clean the chalkboard erasers, or being perpetually called "Flat Face" by all the kids in the neighborhood (that one really happened). It's just not true what they say about sticks and stones, and that names will never hurt you...but I digress. I gotta get over it--by tomorrow!

Read more...

Tuesday Topics 1 - Sleeping at Night

Here's Cabana napping during the day. As you can see, she likes to get RIGHT in front of the space heater. Although I don't need to tell you that the z's were added in with the beauty of Photoshop, they are a mere shadow of the real snoring that Cabana produces. This puppy's snoring can put a 300-pound beer-drunken sailor to shame.

With my Tuesday Topics posts, I'd like to ask other puppy raisers out there some questions. Because I am a new puppy raiser, there are so many things that I don't know, and I'd love to know what others do.

So here's my question for this week. Where does your puppy sleep at night? In a crate? On a dog bed? With or without a tie down? In your bedroom or another part of the house? And why do you have the puppy sleep there? Does it help with a problem? What's the best scenario for getting to sleep in a bit on weekends?!

We put Cabana in her crate at about 10pm, and she sleeps all night without any problems. Not a peep. At about 6:30am, we get up and let her out to do her business. She might be able to wait longer than that, but I get worried that she's getting uncomfortable. Her crate is downstairs in our family room. As I said, she's a loud snorer, so I don't think we can have her sleep in our bedroom because I'll never get any sleep.

But I wonder when/if we should transition her to a dog bed. I'd like to, but I don't know if that will work for us since she's not in our room at night. And I won't be able to leave her on a tie down since she'll be unsupervised....

Please leave me a comment with where your puppy sleeps. I'd love to hear from a few of you, and I thank you in advance for your input!!

Read more...