This Dog

Rita sleeps a lot but after dinner, which for her is about 6:00 p.m., she’s pretty much out for the night. I will take her out before I go to bed. I’m not even sure she’s fully awake but she goes out and does what she has to do and that’s what matters. I go to bed around midnight. The routine now is to unplug her heating mat, take the mat and Rita to her little bassinet, then I go back, get my water, turn out the lights, check the thermostat and then I go to bed. By the time I get in bed, she is out again.

Last night when I went to turn out my bedside lamp, I glanced over at her and cracked up. This dog sleeps like I do – the minute we’re in bed, we are dead to the world.

Only problem is that I could sleep til 8 or 9 a.m. but not Miss Rita. 5:10 this morning and she was ready to get up. I got up, put outside clothes on, took her out, came in, fixed her food. She’s still taking an antibiotic and gets a probiotic so it’s a bit more than dumping a couple of spoonfuls of food in her bowl. The 10 seconds that it takes to mix it all up, she’s jumping on the back of my leg . . so excited about eating. We’re alike in that way too! 🙂

But, then . . I left her eating, walked back to my bathroom to brush my teeth and I heard her barking. Since she’s had tummy issues for so long, but the last few days have been good, I thought . . oh, no . . she has to go out again.

I finished what I was doing, went back to get her but no . . she didn’t want to go out. I hadn’t brought her heating pad back to the breakfast room yet. She was standing in front of her bed barking to let me know she needed her heating pad.

I was telling Vince . . she is so darned demanding! He said “You see why someone dumped her a$$.”

It’s funny because I had only had dachshunds and they are known for being hard headed and bull headed but I never had a dachshund that would compare to Rita in being demanding and hard headed. Are all chihuahuas that way? The weird thing about her though is that she’s so friendly. Vets are always a bit stand offish at first til they see how friendly she is. We’ve had several people in this week giving us estimates on some work we need done and she barks and barks and they try to keep their distance from her til I tell them “She thinks you’re here to see her. If you don’t mind, just talk to her or pet her and she’ll leave you alone.” So far, they’ve all squatted down with her, talked to her and loved on her a bit. That’s all she needs . . acknowledge that she’s the queen of the house and then she can get back on her warm heated throne!

Vince and I were talking this morning and I told him I might as well order a second heating pad so I can keep one in the bedroom. He said “Order two more because she’s going to want one downstairs too. I guess it will be good to have an extra one or two. Now that she’s spent 24 hours a day staying warm and cozy, can you imagine what life would be like around here if we only had one and it quit working!

Yes, this little dog controls pretty much every aspect of our lives.