Waking Up to a Nightmare

So the only people reading this who do not realize I love dogs more than any other human being on the planet loves dogs are those reading for the first time. A close second--I'll give him that--is my husband. And ranking 3rd in line for the most love exhibited between man and dog is Teddy the beagle, my husband's dog who loves and adores John more than I can explain. He's practically co-dependent. Check that; he is co-dependent.

It is very sweet though; Teddy truly is a great, very loving and lovable dog.

Except when he's waking us up every 2-3 hours at night to be let out of his crate so he can slurp down a gallon of water, hit the yard for some "business," and then return to the comfort of his pillow for more snooze time. I realize that the gallons of water nonsense is what most logical folks would think is the hiccup in curing this hellish disruption of our beauty sleep. Gallons of water at 2:00 am just begs for a 4:30 wake up. But Teddy is constantly suffering from UTIs and it's usually the extreme thirst that has him barking that notorious Beagle bark from his crate more so than the need to relieve himself. And to deny the water seems cruel.

So alas, we have fought this battle for an eternity and after much medication to ensure there was no medical reason for getting up so often, we and our vet decided this must be bad habit now and we devised a new plan designed to get us back to wakeless nights of sleep. The new plan is to put Teddy in my son's playroom which has a door to our fenced back yard. That door is equipped with a dog door through which the T can go in and out for water or pee time as often as his furry self desires. We have to close off the playroom because of my two cats that are not permitted outside.

Other than the occasional chirp from outside in the middle of the night, this has been working pretty well until about 6:30-7 a.m. when Teddy's patience with being separated from John runs out and he expresses his irritation with that incessant "I know you can hear me and I'm not going to stop disturbing the peace until you give me what I want" Beagle bark outside the back door. Our neighbors love us, I'm sure.

The other morning, we hit 7:00 and hadn't heard Teddy "calling" to us to come in all night. Shocker. John went down to let in the pup and discovered the reason the back yard was suspiciously bark-free. We'd left one of our gates unlatched and Teddy's Beagle nose had led him into the free world. He'd been out all night long and there was no telling where he'd be.

We do have a collar on him with a name/phone number tag, but naturally, who would've been up to spot him throughout the night? No one. He could've wandered quite a ways away, been struck by a car on the busy main road, or been picked up by someone who decided they'd like to keep such a sweet, friendly dog. We were scared to death.

John hit the streets walking and whistling for Teddy. I hopped in the car and drove the neighborhood, stopping to ask all I saw if they'd spied a wandering Beagle. No one had. I ventured out onto the main road and instinct told me to turn left. We're surrounded by neighborhoods; surely one of the umpteen joggers had seen him. Still, no dice. One guy told me he'd just run from all the way up that road in the direction I was headed and did not see a dog. And Teddy is friendly enough that he'd definitely have come and jogged along with someone he saw out there. My hopes dashed.

I pulled into a neighborhood with the intention of quickly turning around in a driveway and going the other way. But something told me to drive on ahead. "A few more houses and then I'll turn around," I thought. I drove by a few more houses, and something said to just keep driving. All the way to the end of the road I drove and entered the culdesac, forced to turn back. But suddenly, there he was. Out of the corner of my eye came the T, running after my car.

I scooped up his smelly, dew and grass covered self, never more thrilled to see him. We found John walking and headed home.

If you love dogs, you know the fear we felt that morning. It ended well, thank God, but talk about waking up to a nightmare.

Note: It is upsetting the number of people who lose a beloved animal and never had a collar or tag on them with owner's name and number. Regardless of all the precautions on the world, your pet could get away when you least expect it. The odds of him/her returning is 100 fold if they have your name and number on them somewhere obvious. Invest in a $5 ID tag and rest a little easier.