news-record.com

The past few weeks, Greta has been getting spoiled by coming inside every night after dinner. I'm probably at fault here because I'm a big softie. But it's leading to a huge problem. What started out as the dogs coming inside to get warm on a few cold nights has turned into Greta whining and barking at the door every night.

A lot of you are probably wondering what's wrong with us that we don't let the dogs inside. Well, they're not really inside dogs. We made that decision when we first adopted them. We have a great fenced in yard, a nice porch with a crate for them on it. And Cassie is a border collie who needs to run and play. She gets extremely bored inside the house. We can only entertain her for so long.

But obviously situations occur when they need to be inside. Cold weather (for Greta especially), hot weather (for Cassie espcially), bad storms, and then of course the "we just want to hang out with our dogs more" excuse.

A few weeks ago there were some chilly nights when we decided Greta needed to come inside after they had eaten dinner. And now, she thinks she should come inside every night, and lets us know it. First it starts off with a whimper. That'll last for awhile. Then it turns into a yelp. The real charmer is the bark, which she perfectly times at about one bark every minute. It's enough to drive you mad.

So we cave, and bring the dogs inside. And Greta gets her way. We can't stay mad at her, she's an angel inside. She curls up on her pillow infront of the fireplace and is asleep within 10 minutes of coming inside. Cassie, on the other hand, won't stop moving. She's here, she's there, she's in my face, she's in my husband's face, she's in the kitchen, in the dining room, cruising the kitchen counters for crumbs, looking for a sock to chew a hole in, back in my face, back in my husband's face, checking on Greta, back in the dining room, getting a drink of water, looking for more crumbs, making a move for Greta's pink ball, getting yelled at, back in the dining room, drinking more water, back in my face. And then finally settling on playing with her plastic toy bone. I'm exhausted just typing it all out.