Mommm, I can't sleep

Once upon a times I used to babysit. Human children. And I used to be up on all their little tricks--especially the ones they used for not going to bed. "I can't sleep, my feet are sweaty." "I think there's something in the closet." All good diversionary tactics.

But it's been a while since I've had to deal with kids and their shenanigans. Too bad, since I now have a four-legged canine son  who, in many respects, is like a naughty little child.

Ok, so Dieter is 19 months old. I thought once he hit the big "1" he'd being showing more maturity. In all fairness, he has vastly improved in some areas. There has been no need to issue any "clean up in aisle 10" messages in ages, he doesn't try to gnaw our arms off anymore, and he actually will sit and wait for the back door to open and receive the "out" command.

You know there's a "but" in this story, right? But...he is still like a little kid in that he has to get into everything, check everything out, and touch everything.

"Hey, what's this? Oh, cool"

"What would happen if I....oops."

"I love this! Can I has it?"

He still is fascinated with pot holders, towels (paper and fabric), the remote control (he has to pick it up, carry it to the kitchen, and drop it--with great disdain--on the floor), wine bottle openers (he looks like a furry sommelier when he holds the opener in his mouth), and gardening gloves, to name but a few. I know he does most of these things for attention--just like a kid. If he could speak, Dieter would probably be shouting "Look what I can do!"

He is also getting bad about his bedtime. We typically "tuck him in" around 9 PM. He usually gets a bedtime snack of freeze-dried liver, and it's off to slumberland for Dieter. But of late, he's started barking at 5 AM (and once or twice around 4:30). The first time he did it, Lloyd thought it sounded like an alert bark, i.e., someone's on the deck. Alert! Alert! So he went downstairs to check things out and ended up sitting on the couch with Dieter, watching the sun rise. Yup. That was a mistake.

The other night, Lloyd was away on business, so it was just Dieter, the cats, and me. Around 2 AM: "Bark!" "Bark?""Um, Bark!"

I tiptoed downstairs to see if zombies were on the deck. They weren't. That was another mistake--the checking out the zombie part and letting the dog know his barks get attention. Then, here's my second mistake: I decided to sleep next to him on the couch, just like I did when we first got him. I swear I thought it would settle him down. Well, he settled down for about 5 minutes. Then the cats came in. Then Dieter started complaining that the cats shouldn't be in his bedroom. And rinse and repeat.

The upshot: I got about 4 hours of sleep and Dieter got the message that all he has to do is bark and someone comes running. Just like a crying baby knows how to work its parents, so does a 19-month-old GSD.

I'm not heading downstairs anymore unless--as my cousin advised--he's barking hysterically. "You'll know when you need to check out the situation," she said. And if that's going on, I think I'll just dial 9-1-1.

In the mean time, I  just hope I can find my stash of earplugs.