Alpha Human

Meet Mia.

She's not ours. Hailey has been dog-sitting this week for a couple in the ward who are on vacation. I hope they are having fun. They dropped her off Monday evening, with her accoutrements of water dish, food dish, toys & crate. We were told that we should put her into the crate when we leave the house, and at night. We try to be obedient. Really. That first night, we let her outside for her evening constitutional, and then put her into the crate, turned off the lights, and went to bed.

Sorta.

She whimpered, she cried, she barked, she complained, she boobed and hollered. She didn't sleep. Hailey didn't sleep. I didn't sleep. I decided that Tuesday night we'd put her crate out in the garage. Bedtime came. We started our getting-ready-for-bed routine. We put her in the crate. She began to whimper. She began to cry. She began to bark. She began to complain, boob and holler. After about an hour, I couldn't handle it any more. I decided that whether or not she sleeps crated at home, I need to sleep in my own home, so I let her out of the crate and brought her into the house.

Let me just say at this point that I know that dogs are pack animals. They crave being in a pack. They know who the alpha dog is in their pack. They're not much different from humans, in that regard. We know who our alpha human is in each of our packs. Mia's pack leaders had left her at our house. Hailey is supposed to be in charge of her-Hailey is the dog sitter.

Kinda.

Mia's figured out that I am the alpha human in our little, tiny pack. (She hasn't met or seen Tad, so she doesn't know that he is our alpha human.) She won't even give Hailey the time of day, except when she wants to play "Throw the Walrus". (Yes, that looks as funny in print as it sounds out loud.) Otherwise, she sits by me, follows me around the house, to the kitchen, to the scrapbook room, to the laundry room, to the bathroom...

When it's bedtime, she follows me downstairs to my bedroom, which I shut firmly in her face, and I immediately hear her plop down on the floor outside the door. At least she's not whimpering or barking or crying. She does, however, wear metal tags on her collar. When she wakes, she does what every dog in the world does--gets up and gives herself a good shake. This jangles her tags, which I hear through the closed door. This wakes me better than an alarm clock. Her humans must get up earlier than I do, though, because I've been seeing a lot of 5:30 am this week.

Suffice it to say I'm not sleeping well, and I'll be glad when her humans come Saturday evening to retrieve her.

I'm not offering to dog-sit, ever again, for anybody. Sorry to say, Hailey's not getting a dog until she's out on her own, either. I'm too old for this kind of thing.