Not so god damned cute when she's shatting all over your kitchen floor. Trust me. Even less cute? When she does it four, count `em, four nights in a row. Tim and I are starting to hallucinate from lack of sleep. I am starting to understand how people with babies feel, although without the reward of having a mini version of myself to look up into my eyes and say "mommy". Yes, the dog is cute and she looks into my eyes but she hasn't learned to speak yet and she usually shows her affection in a way that I can't really reciprocate like biting. Okay, my heart just melted a little bit when I thought of her cute little face but that is also partly caused by my state of delirium from the inability to get a full night's rest all week.
NIGHT ONE
I woke up a little bit earlier than usual when the sun peaked in the window. Still slightly groggy, I checked the time. It was 5 something. Back to sleep I went. But I couldn't fall into a real sleep because I kept getting fart blasts in my face that were so strong, I could taste them. I sort of laughed to myself that Tim must have eaten something nasty last night and was sure to have a sweet bathroom blowout when he eventually woke up. (I can only laugh because, thank the Lord, I did not marry a farter and he is usually as dainty as a Victorian lady in his sleep). I tell you though, that smell started to get worse and worse and finally I had to say something. Tim was dead asleep and just pushed me away. Then I noticed that the dog was not in our room. She normally sleeps on Tim's side of the bed for half the night, then on mine until morning. But she was no where to be seen. All of a sudden, I got a really bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. Tim, I said, I think Zelda may have shit in the kitchen. Another push away. So I braved it all on my own. My fear began to grow as I got closer and closer to the kitchen (we have a long railroad apt) as the smell got stronger and stronger. As I finally reached the kitchen, my worst fears were confirmed, and then some. I can't even begin to describe the horror but it was on par with the Gluttony murder scene in Se7en. Just think about the spaghetti, the vomit, the buzzing of flies circling the fat man for a second...now transfer that feeling to my kitchen on Monday at 5am. Oh yeah.
I ran back in to wake up Tim, yelling like the town crier "She did! She shit all over the kitchen!". This is the best: he pulled the covers down and patted me to lie down next to him and said "we'll clean it up when it's time to wake up." And dear Lord, don't you know that I actually got back into that bed and fell back asleep until 6:36 when our alarms went off. I still don't know how that was possible, but I did. When we finally confronted the atrocity, it was as awful as you can imagine, and compounded exponentially because we didn't have any paper towels and had to use toilet paper to pick up the wet piles of doody. I won't go into much more detail but I'll leave you with this: TP isn't particularly thick and it took a really really long time and a lot of hand washing. The experience was enhanced by early morning grumpiness and some cheap shot attempts at blaming one another. Zelda watched on with a smile.
Sleep deprivation: One hour
NIGHT TWO
We were extremely cautious with Zelda before we laid down to rest, doing everything properly according to our German Shepherd manual; we fed her rice and hamburger, we gave her a little canned pumpkin, we walked her hours after she ate, we gave her plenty of exercise, we took her out twice for extra poops. We did everything perfectly. And yet, we were still a little uneasy. Turns out, rightfully so.
A few hours into the night, Zelda started walking around nervously. We told her to lay down and rest, which she did for a minute, then she disappeared as we were sleeping. Sure enough, she played the kitchen routine again, this time in smaller amounts, but enough to rouse my senses awake. Tim got up this time and took her out for a walk, bless his soul, in the middle of the night, while I cleaned up the poop. We all settled back in and fell back asleep shortly thereafter. And then the panting began. She was panting like she was going to die and I was absolutely positive that she had bloat and kept feeling her stomach and giving her water and watching her. I could not sleep because her breathing was so loud and I was sure she was going to die. I guess I am to blame for keeping Tim up all night on Night Two, but like I told him when he yelled at me, would you prefer that I don't care about the dog? What if she did have bloat? Should I just sleep through it and worry about it in the morning? She could be dead by then! (She obviously wasn't and I think was just panting because it was really hot and she has long fur.) She did eventually slow down and I fell back asleep only to wake up with her walking around the room in circles, never a good sign. I woke Tim up and he took her outside again where she blasted a few rounds, unfortunately one of which was in the hallway. I had to run down and clean it up before any of the neighbors woke up and saw me. I was terrified that I was going to get caught, but fortunately I didn't. There is a still a little stain there, so shhhhhh.... I swear I did the best I could though!
At this point, it was almost time to get up and we just sort of stared at the ceiling for a little while until the alarm went off.
Sleep deprivation: 4 hours
NIGHT THREE
It's all starting to blend together now but I think this was the night that she was panting and walking around and I had another Bloat Panic Attack and didn't sleep all night with worry. She only peed on the floor this night with just a little Hershey squirt on the floor before we got her out the door. Most of Night Three's sleep deprivation was caused by arguing about what to do with her and being stressed out by the fact that we may never sleep again. Oh! and I almost forgot. She did poop inside again- right on my cute little ankle boot from Anthropologie. I had to kiss that one goodbye. Oh well, an excuse to buy more shoes...
Sleep deprivation: 2 1/2 hours
NIGHT FOUR
We decided to go back to crate training. We put her in her cage and slept soundly for a while. It actually seemed to work! Until 4am when the barking began. Our dog never barks. We naturally assumed that it was because she wasn't used to the crate anymore and just tried to ignore it, but it got to a point where it was just entirely too loud and we were at risk of waking up the entire building. We had to let her out. She started circling again, uh oh. I shot up like a light and walked her into the kitchen but she decided to stop along the way and let one free on the rug. The only place worse than my shoes. I tried to stop her mid-poop but it was a slider and it slid right on out. I took her outside (around 2am) and walked her around the park, constantly in fear of being raped by the weirdos who lurk there at night. Thankfully we only encountered some rats and we came home unraped and unscathed.
We put her back in the cage and she fell asleep until the sun rose around 5am when there was some more barking and cage rattling and Tim took her out this time. We both just gave in and decided to stay up. We read the news on our respective electronic devices, dazed and confused.
Poor doggie. Poor us.
Sleep Deprivation: 3 hours
TOTAL SLEEP DEPRIVATION: 10 1/2 HOURS
Well, this has been a fun week. We are going to take her to the vet tomorrow and get some advice. Don't worry, she is okay, but naturally we want to be sure. Also, we would like to sleep again some day. Oh, the sacrifices we make for those we love.
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