With the defeat of Donald Trump, we were sleeping better. But then the fire happened and our life was upended. And subsequently to that the older of our two dogs has developed a very annoying habit.
He wakes up anywhere from 2 to 4 am every night and demands to be let out to pee and fed thereafter. He's always been an early riser (typicallly 5 am), but since his trip to the vet in December to address his congestive heart failure and the issuing of medications to combat it, he's gotten earlier and earlier. The vet tech tells us the meds are to blame.
Ben and I trade off taking care of his needs, and for the most part we can get back to sleep rather quickly thereafter, but we've really come to look forward to the weekends when we can sleep in significantly past our usual 6:30 am wake up time after taking care of this daily routine.
We've tried everything: benadryl, melatonin, making sure he empties his bladder before bed, even feeding him before bed, and it makes no difference. Like clockwork the low level growls start just as we're entering the deepest part of our night's sleep.
Bobo is not going to be with us that much longer, a sad fact we've come to accept, and we will miss him mightily. But now we're worried that his early-morning feedings have also imprinted themselves on our younger dog so that even after Bobo has moved on to greener pastures, Sammy will have adopted his bad habits. Fortunately Sammy is still at the point where he can be told NO and it sticks.
