July 23, 2014 at 2:10 p.m.
Spring storms have left him dog tired (04/19/06)
Back in the Saddle
By By JACK RONALD-
Ah, spring.
Daffodils, baseball, revving up the lawnmower.
And, of course, atmospheric changes that drive the dog crazy.
Shadow's always been storm-sensitive. A strong wind in her face can be both baffling and upsetting. But as she has gotten older — she'll be a dignified 13 in May — she has also gotten deafer, so sometimes the thunder of a spring storm front is no problem at all.
Other times, even without thunder, she's a black Labrador barometer, with her pants increasing with every change in atmospheric pressure.
None of that would be a problem, except for the fact that spring storms in Indiana and Ohio tend to move through at night, when there's a little thing called sleep that a restless dog is capable of interrupting.
It's been a rough week or so.
Thursday night, she was a basket case, wandering through the house like some canine ghost from a Shakespearean play about 2:30 in the morning.
She'd come in while we were sleeping, pant in our faces, perhaps paw at the mattress, then wander out again. In the distance, I could hear — because I was now awake — the click of her toenails on the kitchen linoleum. A few minutes later, she was back again, panting and pawing.
Later, when she was apparently trying to sleep, she woke us both up as she pawed at the closet door. Maybe she was chasing bunnies in her dreams, I don't know. All I know is that our dreams were interrupted.
Friday night started out okay. Then I went into work to handle the sports pages so Ray Cooney could spend Good Friday and the rest of Easter weekend with his family.
Soon after I left, a storm front moved through and the dog moved into the Twilight Zone. She paced. She drooled. She paced and drooled simultaneously. She pawed at a stack of catalogs in an old copper boiler, tossing them around the family room. She tried to go under tables she didn't fit under, and she tried to turn around in spaces she couldn't turn around in. Lamps were nearly knocked over, and the room looked as if there had been a fist-fight.
But by the time I got home, around midnight, the storm front had passed through and the dog had calmed down.
Saturday night was another story.
This time, it must have been an invisible storm. Instead of the rain and wind of Friday night, not much happened. Except inside the dog's head.
For more than two hours — smack dab in the middle of the night — we were treated to frantic, worried, dogged goofiness, the sort that makes sleep impossible.
Ah, spring.
It's the season when the dog owners are clearly recognizable by their bloodshot eyes and tendency to doze off whenever a storm front isn't passing through.[[In-content Ad]]
Daffodils, baseball, revving up the lawnmower.
And, of course, atmospheric changes that drive the dog crazy.
Shadow's always been storm-sensitive. A strong wind in her face can be both baffling and upsetting. But as she has gotten older — she'll be a dignified 13 in May — she has also gotten deafer, so sometimes the thunder of a spring storm front is no problem at all.
Other times, even without thunder, she's a black Labrador barometer, with her pants increasing with every change in atmospheric pressure.
None of that would be a problem, except for the fact that spring storms in Indiana and Ohio tend to move through at night, when there's a little thing called sleep that a restless dog is capable of interrupting.
It's been a rough week or so.
Thursday night, she was a basket case, wandering through the house like some canine ghost from a Shakespearean play about 2:30 in the morning.
She'd come in while we were sleeping, pant in our faces, perhaps paw at the mattress, then wander out again. In the distance, I could hear — because I was now awake — the click of her toenails on the kitchen linoleum. A few minutes later, she was back again, panting and pawing.
Later, when she was apparently trying to sleep, she woke us both up as she pawed at the closet door. Maybe she was chasing bunnies in her dreams, I don't know. All I know is that our dreams were interrupted.
Friday night started out okay. Then I went into work to handle the sports pages so Ray Cooney could spend Good Friday and the rest of Easter weekend with his family.
Soon after I left, a storm front moved through and the dog moved into the Twilight Zone. She paced. She drooled. She paced and drooled simultaneously. She pawed at a stack of catalogs in an old copper boiler, tossing them around the family room. She tried to go under tables she didn't fit under, and she tried to turn around in spaces she couldn't turn around in. Lamps were nearly knocked over, and the room looked as if there had been a fist-fight.
But by the time I got home, around midnight, the storm front had passed through and the dog had calmed down.
Saturday night was another story.
This time, it must have been an invisible storm. Instead of the rain and wind of Friday night, not much happened. Except inside the dog's head.
For more than two hours — smack dab in the middle of the night — we were treated to frantic, worried, dogged goofiness, the sort that makes sleep impossible.
Ah, spring.
It's the season when the dog owners are clearly recognizable by their bloodshot eyes and tendency to doze off whenever a storm front isn't passing through.[[In-content Ad]]
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