Tough Love...

Two weeks ago yesterday our little girl Abbie Mae decided that life just wasn't complicated enough for us! And I mean that in the loviest way possible. But she has turned our little world upside down in the last few weeks. She's a sweet little dog, who has always been very emotional and has shown tendencies toward anxiety or anxious behavior. She's gotten to the point where she's about 90-95% house-trained. There were the occasional accidents when we'd left the house and she was mad at us. :) And loud noises made her jump out of her skin... Even when I'd sneeze she'd give me THAT look and then sigh and jump off the couch next to me for a safer distance. So funny.

Then we moved to Lincoln and we just happened to find the perfect little place for our family RIGHT between the Lincoln airport and the biggest railroad junction in the city (where they load empty rail cars with coal/ rocks/ other loud objects in the middle of the night). So last fall Abbie went through a phase where she wouldn't settle on the bed at night. She would shake like a leaf and jump off the bed, scratch at our doors, want BACK on the bed, would jump onto my nightstand and shake, etc. I didn't get more than an hour or two of sleep each night, until I just convinced myself to ignore her. I thought it was just because we had moved and she was getting used to the new place and all the airplanes, etc. But more importantly, Kevin was in Dallas for 8 weeks and I thought that she was just reacting to his absence. Then Kevin returned and Abbie went back to "normal"... Until a few weeks ago. She started shaking again and would jump off the bed, then want back up, then back off... She scratched at our door and we tried covering the door with pillows. She'd knock them over and scratch, so we piled the pillows higher. Then she scratched at the nightstand or the garbage can. We even tried just leaving the door open a little bit so she could come and go as she pleased. But we caught her scratching at NOAH'S door next. BIG mistake, little girl! Fortunately, Noah has been sleeping through all of this lately.

Bottom line: I spent four nights on the couch downstairs so that Kevin could get a few hours of sleep so that he could be to work by 6am. Oh little girl... What is UP????? This is probably a great time to interject a picture of just how CUTE she is:

I finally ended up calling her vet and he put her on anti-anxiety meds and.... After four years of having her snuggle with us at night, he's asked us to crate train her. For those of you not familiar, this is a way of training a dog to be in their "safe place" or their own little bed/ kennel whenever you leave the house and when you go to bed at night. Typically, this is best done when they're puppies because it also helps to housebreak them right from the start. Dogs generally won't have accidents in their bed because it's their special place and they don't like to be shut in with their "accident." I remember that we tried to crate train Abbie when we first got her, but we had grumpy neighbors and very thin walls (The first week usually involves a LOT of barking at night until they get used to it!) and frankly we just decided that we liked having Abbie on our bed with us. So we let it go...

Four years later, we're crate training her because of anxiety. Kevin and I are really quite sad over this because we really miss our "Little B" snuggling with us at night and I hate the fact that she's so medicated. Her vet would like to eventually wean her from the meds, but I don't know when. It's just so heartbreaking!!! I cried the first few nights as she barked ALL night. She's still barking and she absolutely HATES her kennel. So far she's had accidents in it every night. I'm praying that things get better soon. We've made the decision and we need to stick with it. And honestly, she really hasn't been interested in sleeping on our bed or even being in our bedroom at all lately anyway. We had a weak moment last weekend. She'd been in her crate for two nights and we decided to take her up to bed with us just to see if she'd snapped out of it. Sure enough... as soon as we settled into bed and turned off the lights, she jumped off the bed and scratched away at the door. I guess you could say that she's made her bed... :)

Hopefully she'll train very soon and will learn to love her bed. The goal is that even when we're home she'll go to her crate for comfort and will want to rest in there on her own. NOT happening right now! I'm crossing my fingers that it won't be too long. I have to remind myself that Abbie IS a dog and that it's okay for us to TRAIN her. But Abbie has been so much more than a dog to us. She was our very first baby. When she came to us, I finally started calling myself "Mommy." I just hope that she still knows that I love her so much, even after I shut the crate door and go up stairs to bed without her.


Love,
Abbie Mae's Sleep-Deprived Mommy!
@>->--