Rhys

Rhys

Sunday, August 7, 2011

The Blood-Curdling Scream

So a few words about Betty the cattle dog.  Betty is a relatively low-maintenance dog, in comparison to the corgis who require virtually contant interaction.  She will spend blissful afternoons laying on the couch sleeping.  Sometimes she wakes up when Gryffyn decides that she needs to bark at Betty just 'cause.  But Betty just looks at her, sighs, and goes back to sleep.
Her only soft spot is thunderstorms--she is terrified of them.  We have tried every kind of tool--thundershirt, rescue remedy, crates, xanax--and none of these have worked very well.  What has worked best, we discovered, is just letting her be scared and freak out.

The only problem with this is that she gets under things--like the bed in the middle of the night when thunderstorms tend to come--and starts jumping around.  However, with the new "just ignore her" high-tech solution, she has tended to settle down after five minutes and then just sleep under there. 

Which is fine.

Until now.

Now she has decided to start screaming--using a remarkably wide range of tones and volumes.  She will begin with a mild wimper, go into a low growl, and then finish off with a crescendo of rising, high pitched scream.  Last night it was the worst.  At one point, it was so loud that I thought someone might call the cops because the noise suggested maybe that someone was being bludgeoned to death. 

We began to wonder how we would explain to the cops that Betty--the bounding barking cattle dog with the happy dufus face in front of them was the one that had been screaming--because she would certainly get herself out from under the bed at the front door bell.  They would have to search the house to make sure there were no bodies tucked away anywhere.

I did at one point crawl under the bed and make sure she wasn't caught on anything or hurt in some way.  Then I popped half a xanax into her in the desperate hope that some sleep could be salvaged from the night (she had been screaming at two hour intervals--just enough time to fall asleep again, only to be woken up by another operatic series of screams).

After I popped the pill in her, she crawled out, got a drink of water, and went to sleep next to me. 

I have NO idea what this is about.  If anyone has any ideas, please send them!

No comments:

Post a Comment