Monday, April 9, 2012

The Bloody Truth

Our beagle is a hunter! How do we know? Just ask our son. Just spend a night with us and watch what he does while we are sleeping.

Last night after returning from our trip abroad ( that sounds so rich, HaHa), we decided that we would try allowing our "outside dog" to sleep inside our home instead of in the warm garage. Our neighbors still find it bizarre that we don't make our "outside dog" sleep outside. Now what will they think?

For six weeks while we were traveling around here in the South with our Dutch friends and then traveling on our own in Europe, our pup was an "inside dog" at our son's home. He stayed in his cage during work days and mostly slept next to our son's bed at night. So we decided to see if we could give our Flip the best of both worlds--he could become an "inside/outside dog."

Last night we tried a few locations in our house for his bed with mattress. (I can SEE your eyes rolling!) Then my hub remembered that he had seen Flip sleeping in a corner of our living room, a room that I forbid him to stay in. So Hub placed the dog bed in that corner, and Flip hopped right on and fell asleep. Around 2:00 this morning I heard the tick, tick of dog claws on our slate tiles in our bedroom. I pretended to be asleep, so the dog went around to Hub' s side of the bed. I guess Flip could tell from the snoring that he wasn't going to get much attention, so he left our bedroom. When I peeked out of the bedroom door some five minutes later, I could see that our beagle was sleeping soundly on his bed. And he was still sleeping at 7:30 this morning. There is even more to this story.

Today when he wanted to rest, our canine went directly to his cozy corner in the living room. Tonight after following me around the kitchen, he forgot and went to his cage in the study. Before he entered it, he remembered his mattressed bed and "flipped" around and went there. So far, so good.

Now the more difficult part. How to keep him reasonably clean to sleep inside our home? Well time will tell. Already this morning after an hour of "hunting," our Flip came home with a bloody chest. I wasted no time running him through the shower by our pool. He was not injured, but some other animal was. Perhaps the real fight has begun--the fight to keep "in and out dog" clean enough for both worlds.

Wish us luck. Or better yet, give us some advice or suggestions.

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