he didn't sleep out, his friends slept over at his place. he had me, and clyde, cuddles, pugsy, frank, lexi, jewel, and IKY all over last night for a sleepover in his room, five of us shared the couch and the rest got the floor. it was kinda of a spur of the moment thing cuz mrs.p was curled up in the middle of my bed. i would have been ok with sleeping with her, but not the rest.
anyway, squirt was beside himself when he woke up this morning and all of us were all still in his room. he went from face to face kissing everyone hello til we all decided to get up. my back is pretty sore today and i don't know how the rest of of them feel but they seem happy enough.
i have been giving some thought to phoebe and her escalating frenzy. i decided to take off the citronella collar, it may be cutting back on the barking a bit but not all that much cuz we have to refill it 4 times a day. her issue is she is an OCD ADDH neurotic and her neurosis now includes mo and tammy whenever they are here. when they happen to be here in different locations than her it bends that lightening speed mind of hers into too many different places. she goes nutz and i quickly follow.
this is a hard one, cuz when she is with them, she is absolutely fine and content. and when they are gone from here, she is ok with that too. it is when they are here and she CAN'T be with them that she utterly loses her mind. so i am thinking, should i let her be with them, every second they are here and they just can't go where she cannot go? ok, that probably isn't very good in the long term for her.
now i am equating this to a profound, (and for her) devastating separation anxiety that occurs just when they are on site.... and what am i going to do about this, and what are my, mo's and tammy's roles? i think for one thing, i will up her elavil dose. i am thinking she can still spend the day in the barn with the other dogs when mo is there. because that is a shared group activity and she doesn't get any more one on one than anyone else out there.
i talked to tammy last night and she is going to start frequently popping in and out of the house and not making eye contact or giving phoebe any attention... just come in, switch the laundry around, mop up a puddle and then say hello to everyone before going back to whatever she was doing. this is what i do with all of the SA dogs and eventually their anxiety decreases. phoebe can still have her one on one leash run at a specific point in the day. and we talked about tammy possibly taking her off site to an obedience class once a week and doing mini 15 minute training sessions here in between.
i don't want to prevent phoebe from having fun time, but she has to learn that it is not about her all the time, there are many others with the exact same need. she does not live in a single animal home, she lives in a communal animal sanctuary.
i think from now on she has to work for it somehow and not get it for free just because she wants it, she looks cute and she screams.
anyway, that's what i am thinking, i have no idea if this will work for her or not. but we will give it a try and see if she can untwist a bit and ultimately not feel so frustrated and frenzied and maybe i won't feel so angry at her all the time because she truly is driving me nutz.