Well, I am happy to say, the weekend went better than expected with my mother staying. This is our second overnight guest occasion with our rescue dog, Charlie. The first guests were a dog savvy friend and her young son. Let’s just say that visit didn’t involve much sleeping on anyone’s part. My other half had to go in to work the next morning and was pretty cranky with the whining and pacing. I ended up sleeping on the couch with Charlie on leash, well very little sleeping, and Charlie would not settle down until the house had been completely free of any sounds for a few hours when he finally begrudgingly slept. I woke with a stiff neck. Our dog is very anxious around being separated from anyone in the house by doors or anything. We have done lots of work on this and I do exercises as this situation inevitably comes up as repair people have to move about the house and it is not safe and undesirable to have a Collie anxiously crowding them.
We have made some good progress recently and Charlie is developing some coping and adapting skills with new things in the home. So after canceling friends that were planning on coming to the house, we had my mother stay over. Worst-case scenario was we all wouldn’t get any sleep but I was hoping since this was one quiet adult that we would do better now. Well, Charlie was very excited about my mother and if I didn’t manage him with great treat rewards and have him go to his bed, he would herd her and block any walking progress and wanted sniff her and nibble on her clothes, which is a nervous habit of his but he did eventually lay down although with big sighs. Progress!
The first night I knew he would be concerned about being in our room with someone else in the house and indeed he did keep us up for at least an hour whining but he did eventually give up and go to sleep. Progress, less fussing. The next night there was only the briefest whining at door and then he settled in for sleep again with lots of sighing which he does when concerned but we got a good nights sleep. Yes, progress and adapting! Yeah!
My mother drove home yesterday and this morning when I came down to make coffee I heard Charlie fussing and whining upstairs and I knew he was looking for my mother. I opened the door to the
Grandma Judy with Charlie
room so he could see she was gone. I left him on the guest bed and he stayed there for a while but now we are back to normal.
Yeah, progress. We are climbing a steep hill to normal but at least we haven’t slid back down to the bottom and the view is improving all the time.
