The following is a true story.
Hi Everybody! Nutmeg here! I’ll be your instructor for this class. Pay close attention. This is good stuff I’ll be teaching you.
Mama loves a good nap. I must get that from her, because I’m an Olympic level napper myself. I think that some of her happiest moments are when we nap together. I can’t argue with that. It’s at those times when we feel safest and most at home.
Sadly, our sleep cycles sometimes get out of sync, and, frankly, it drives me nutty. Case in point, when Mama is in the recliner and I am draped across her, looking for all the world like a bag of wet cement (and weighing that much, too. It’s a secret talent of mine.), and suddenly she feels the need to unceremoniously push me off her lap so she can go into the dreaded dog bath place and shut the door. (Why anyone would voluntarily go in there is beyond me, but she visits it multiple times every day and night.)
Fortunately, after a long, sleepy, indignant moan, I’m generally able to fall right back to sleep. (And I’m proud to say that I don’t snore like my sister Coda does.) When Mama returns and recreates a lap nest for me, I’m much less offended by being relocated yet again, because I know that’s where I was always meant to be. (Somehow, I knew this even before we met. Another talent.)
But there are times when I want to play, and for some reason Mama decides that this is the perfect time for her to take a nap. I don’t think she gets the memo that the world revolves around me, even though I send it to her daily. (Someone please tell her to check her SPAM folder.) So I feel the need to take drastic action to correct this oversight.
I wait until Mama is snuggled all safe in her bed so that my next move will have even more impact. Then, I charge into the room and LEAP onto the bed. One time I did it with such enthusiasm that she bounced off the bed and onto the floor. I may want attention, but not that kind of attention. So now, after the slightly more subdued leap, I throw myself down on my back and start wiggling, making sure to kick her enough keep her from falling back to sleep, but not so much that I hurt her. (There’s a subtle difference. It takes a lot of practice.) “Wake up!!! I wanna play!”
Sadly, this has proven to be unsuccessful the last hundred times I’ve attempted it. But I don’t want to skip this step because the bed leap is so much fun. Mama’s usual response at this point is to thrust her arm at me and say something in her incomprehensible language that sounds like “GrrrrOFF!”
I interpret that as a mix between a growl and a woof, which causes me to instantly start nibbling on her hand. And then I’m rewarded by more play words: “Nutmeg! GrrrOff!”
After a while, though, she hides her hands under her pillow, which is just as outrageous as hiding any other toy. Clearly, reinforcements are needed. So I play/growl loudly enough to cause my sister to think I’m attacking Mama for real.
Coda is always quick to jump to Mama’s defense, so this hubbub causes her to rush into the bedroom, where she leaps on the bed herself and tackles me. Oh yeah! Sh*t just got real!
We roll all over the bed, play growling and perfecting our wrestling moves. We’re having such a good time that we almost forget about Mama entirely, except when we roll on top of her and she says, “G’WAY!” (Whatever that means.)
Coda tries to show me that she means business by putting my whole head in her mouth, but she never draws blood. Is it any wonder that I struggle to take her seriously? She has the weight advantage, but what I lack in size I make up for in agility and enthusiasm.
At this point, I’m rather shocked that Mama is still unwilling to join in the fun. She sits partway up, which seems like success. But then she says, “G’WAY” again, and flops back down. For some reason Coda seems to take that as a threat and leaves the room. Since I haven’t won the battle yet, I follow quickly on her heels.
Mama sometimes closes the door at this point, but she does that less and less because she has learned that she’ll then be treated to me scratch, scratch, scratching on the door in no time. (Contrary to popular belief, humans are trainable. She’s very, very good at leaving the door open for me now. And yet, she still is not willing to let go of her crazy nap notions.)
I’ve recently added a few new implements of destruction to my attention-getting toolbox. I take a few moments to catch my breath in the other room in order to give Mama a false sense of security. And then I find the heavy bull horn that I’ve been chewing on for weeks, and I leap up onto the couch with it.
This step requires a lot of delayed gratification on my part. It would be so easy to give up on my mission and simply go into maximum chew-mode, but then all my previous efforts would have been for naught. We can’t have that, can we?
So I slowly stand up on the couch, with the bull horn in my mouth. Then (pausing for only a second to admire my svelte figure reflected back at me in the window), I lean out over the arm of the couch, aim for the hardwood floor, and let go. “Clonk!”
The sound of the bull horn hitting the floor resonates throughout the house. (The bull horn is almost as loud as a bullhorn. Sorry. Had to.)
If that doesn’t get Mama’s attention, nothing will! But this trick has only worked once. Even so, I wait, gleefully, expecting to see her shuffle into the living room, looking resigned to her fate.
Here lately, after a few minutes of silence, I return to the bedroom and walk to her side of the bed. I stand just inches from her face, and stare at her, in an effort to figure out where I’ve gone wrong. (One time she woke up while I was doing that, and she jumped so high it startled me and I spent the next several hours hiding in the living room.)
These naps are severely cutting into my play time, so this week I decided to double down. After taking all the above steps to no avail, I let her settle in once again, and then I went into the food room and picked up my metal dog bowl (which always seems to be empty!) and I dropped it. Twice. “Clank! CLANK!”
Apparently Mama admired my ingenuity, because she came into the kitchen, giggling. Sometimes she mispronounces my name. It sounds like she’s calling me, “Youcrazydog.”
Now I know what it takes to play with Mama, so all is right with the world.
Well, almost…
The other day I was the one asleep, and Mama was opening and closing the door to the cold food place. (This is not to be confused with the door to the REALLY cold food place, which rarely catches my interest. Meat-cicles are too much work.)
I didn’t hear the crackle of cheese packaging, so I didn’t feel the need to wake up. Instead, I achieved such a lovely state of REM that I thought I was chasing squirrels, even though my head was draped backward over the side of the couch, my nose nearly touching the floor. (I’m nothing if not flexible.)
And then, all hell broke loose. “Crash! Bang! Clonk!”
I later discovered that Mama had dropped several pots on the floor, but at this moment it sounded like the postman had finally broken in, as I’m convinced he’s been planning to do for months. If so, he meant business. Red alert! I jumped in the air and fell off the couch.
In my own defense, these attempted home invasions rarely take me by surprise. It is my job to thwart all intruders. But you have to understand that I was chasing squirrels in my head a few seconds ago. Because of that, I was now standing there, leaning against the couch in a confused fog, when Mama stuck her head around the corner and said, “Nutmeg? Did I wake you up? I’m sooooo sorry.”
I wish I knew what that meant. But she was doing that weird smiling/snickering thing that primates tend to do, so I was at a loss. I decided to assume that it meant that I was a very good dog.
I climbed back on the couch, did the required three-circles-before-settling-in to appease the sleep gods, and drifted off to sleep thinking that it’s awfully rude to make so much noise when someone’s trying to get some well-earned rest. If I didn’t love Mama so much, I’d have to tell her that sometimes she can be quite a trial.
Sigh. Humans. What are you gonna do?
While I still have your attention, Dear Humans, I’d like to introduce you to Kash.
Isn’t he handsome? He’s a medium sized ball of energy, just like me. He came from Hawaii at the exact same time that I did, and we sort of look alike, so I think he might be my cousin, at least. I’m pretty sure he’s got a little bit of Pharaoh Hound in him.
Here’s the thing, though. Mama and Dad rescued me about a year ago. But Kash is still languishing in puppy prison, and has been this whole time. It’s a nice shelter, as shelters go, and I’m sure they’re treating him well, but he needs a home!
If you know anyone in Washington State, Northern Oregon, or Southern British Colombia who is looking for a new furbaby, or who might have friends or neighbors who are, please have them go to this website and consider Kash.
https://greyhoundpetsinc.org/adopt/available-dogs/
And please, share this link far and wide!
Love and Kisses at all hours of the day and night as long as I’m not chasing squirrels,
Nutmeg, the Dog
Nutmeg highly recommends my book. Check it out! http://amzn.to/2mlPVh5
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