To understand this story you must first accept the basic premise that I tell clients all the time when they ask why their dog does something weird – Dogs Are Gross.  Freckles, for example, likes to help out with the cleaning of the litterboxes.

We recently moved our upstairs litterbox downstairs.  One side effect is that we know when we hear the pitter patter of little doggie feet heading downstairs that she’s up to no good.

Freckles decided that she needed to go out at 1:30 in the morning. When she came back she decided that it would be nice to have a little snack. She headed downstairs. I asked where she was going. She turned and casually strolled back upstairs. We went to bed.

Immediately she ran back out if the room. I followed. When she heard me she detoured to get a drink. I made her go back to bed.

I closed the door but didn’t latch it. I have a theory that my cats are inter-dimensional beings who lose their powers if the doors closed. That’s the only way to explain why they throw themselves against the doors and scream any time the doors latched. Freckles hurled herself out of bed as soon as I lay down. She managed to bump the door open with dexterity she doesn’t usually have. I followed her again.

We stared at each other in the kitchen. She went over and took one sip out of her water bowl. She laid down in the kitchen. “Really? You expect me to believe that you want to sleep in the kitchen for the first time ever? Get back to bed.” She glared at me but followed.

We both got in bed. She bolted as soon as I was still.

I laid down on the couch which is comfy and is right by the stairs. She walked in and stared at me for a while. This was an unexpected hiccup in her plan. She stomped off to her food bowl. She is free fed so she had a snack while she thought about what do to next. She stuck her head back in the living room. I was still there. More snack. She barked at a cat and then chased her. She came and sat on the couch and glared in my direction. Then she went and ate a full meal to make the bad feelings go away.

Eventually I fell asleep. She may have snuck past me in the night. I’m not sure. She may have just gone to bed and slept on my pillow.

Nice to know my parenting can be as annoying to a dog as it is to children.