March 5, 2001

DOWN HOME:
The whine of a righteous dog availeth quite a bit
___Dogs are smarter than people. Maybe that's not true at your house, but at least our dog is smarter than this person.
___Betsy is 9 years old. Any kid who's memorized multiplication tables can tell you that's 63 in dog years.
___So, when Betsy started whining at 5 a.m. the other Saturday, I wasn't too surprised. I know lots of 63-year-old men who also can't sleep past 5 without at least one trip away

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from bed.
___Being the kind soul that I am, I got up, groped for my houseshoes, picked Betsy up from her cage and carried her to the back door so she could sprint out into the yard and do her best impersonation of a 63-year-old man at 5 a.m.
___No sooner had I set Betsy on the patio than she ran past me, back into the house, to the kitchen, doing her best impersonation of a teenage human being of any gender at any hour. She wanted to eat.
___I told her she was crazy, and she looked at me like I was from Mars. Since I outweigh her by about 165 pounds, I had no trouble getting her back to our room and shutting her back up in her cage.
___She whined for the next couple of hours, until Joanna could stand it no longer and gave her food.
___The next morning, Betsy woke up right on the nose at 5, just like she had eaten the alarm clock.
___Jo already had retreated to the recliner in the den to fight the flu, so I piled pillows over my head and tried to wait Betsy out. Did you know a dog's whine can pierce approximately two feet of foam?
___Over dinner that night, we discussed what to do with Betsy.
___Lindsay and Molly wanted to pour coffee into her drinking bowl during the day, so she can't take those long, luxurious afternoon and evening naps. (We hate it when she gets to sleep while we're at work and school.) They theorized that if we could keep her awake all day, she'd sleep all night.
___I wanted to give her drugs, but I'm not sure how to measure out sleeping pills for a 7-pound mutt.
___Sometimes, Betsy reminds me of when our girls were preschoolers. No matter how hard you try to psyche yourself up, you can't muster more will-power and sheer stubbornness than a 3-year-old in a grocery store who decides she's been in a shopping cart about long enough.
___As with children's phases, I've been telling myself Betsy's stubborn streak will come to an end. Someday. Or else she'll start sleeping in the closet.
___Early one morning, as I lay awake and listened to Betsy whine, I wondered what God thinks when we fill all our prayers with pleas and never utter any praises. I don't know for sure, but I've got a good idea.

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