Just to preface, Maggie is not a barker. She is the quietest dog I have ever had in my entire life (and I grew up with dogs). But every once in a while, she turns into the ferocious warrior dog and starts barking up a storm, especially after 2 AM. This is the dog that will ignore the person walking into the backyard, but bark at a cat sitting on the sidewalk ACROSS THE STREET. When we are in bed. Asleep. One (or both) of us gets up, tells her to hush; she calms down. And then it starts over again. Eventually, she winds up in the bedroom, because we both need to just get some sleep and have to work the next day, no matter what. Sometimes that stops the barking. Sometimes not; she stands on her hind legs to look out the window and continues to growl. At nothing. The cat or raccoon has long since left. But there she is; our fierce 12-pound-ball-of-fluff-defender-doggie, guarding our house and protecting us from rogue urban wild animals.
I have a couple theories. One is Maggie has spidey-senses. And they are tingling a lot lately. The past week, there have been three nights of barking. She is barking at something she cannot see; at whatever random cat or raccoon she thinks she heard through the closed front door. She doesn't even go outside to investigate! Just barks at the crackling leaves rustling in the wind.
The second theory is the Twilight Bark (a la 101 Dalmatians). Maybe there is a message system for animals, passing stories and information along the best way they know how (Maggie might have a Facebook page, but not every four-legged friend is so technologically advanced). If that is the case, I hate to interrupt good communication, but it needs to happen when I am not trying to sleep. There are tons of daylight hours where such a communication method is non-abusive to my sleeping habits.
No comments:
Post a Comment