Dear Sweet Puppy

Dear Bella,

While we have been toying with the possibility of starting to leave you at home unsupervised and outside of your kennel for extended periods of time, we are going to need some cooperation on your part if you think it’s going to happen. For a while there it seemed you could be a very good little unsupervised pup, we let you sleep at the end of our bed instead of your kennel every couple days, and this gave you so much puppy pleasure. You would lay there looking out the window or chewing on your little raw-hide, very respectful of our need for a good seven hours of sleep on a weeknight. But lately, we’ve started to see that this little sleeping arrangement may have a few problems, you have been doing some naughty things while we are sleeping. We really want this to work out, not only because we love to make you a happy puppy, but admittedly it alleviates some of our guilt for leaving you home alone for too long some weekends, selfishly giving our social life more importance than quality time with your cute doggy self. So, little Bella, there are some things we’re going to need from you if you’d like to retain the privilege of sleeping on our bed once in a while, and hopefully one day spend your time alone in the house outside of the kennel. Please consider the following requests:

1. Please stay at the foot of the bed, in the corner by the wall and the window. This is your spot, just like daddy has his spot on the outside, next to the alarm. If you meander to the other side, you will be in his territory, and he has much longer legs than mommy, which means there is always a possibility that you will be kicked off the bed over there. Also, we know you sometimes like to sleep in between us, but again, this is not your spot, and we hate when you do this because it really makes spooning very difficult.
2. Staying in your designated spot also helps accomplish our second request, which is to try to refrain from falling off the bed. Again, since it’s common for you to leave your spot and perch very dangerously on the edge of the bed next to daddy, it’s really not surprising that you often find yourself landing with a big “kurplump” on the hardwood floor. We really don’t want you to get hurt, and we also really hate being woken up suddenly to such a loud noise in the middle of the night. That really freaks us out!
3. Now, if you are going to keep jumping (or falling) off the bed in the middle of the night, you’re going to really have to learn how to get back on by yourself. We know our bed is very high due to the double pillow-top feature of our less-than-one-year-old mattress, so we’re going to find a cute little stool/ottoman to help you out with this endeavor. However, you’re going to have to cooperate more than you did the other day when we tried to teach you to jump up on the bed using an upside down laundry basket as a stool. We know it didn’t really work out and that you were really confused as to what we were asking you to do, but you’re supposed to be one of the smartest breeds out there for goodness sake. You come from a long line of sheep-herders! We’ve seen you jump higher going after frisbees in the back yard, so we know you can do this.
4. For the love of God, when we take you outside before bed, know that that is the LAST CHANCE to do your business. We will not be happy when you wake us up at 12:00AM to go poop because you were too busy barking at and chasing after stars an hour before to deal with it then.
5. Quit with the anal leakage. It is just plain gross, and your daddy would not have put his face so close to it the other day if he knew that that is what that stuff was on our blanket. I don’t blame you entirely for this, though, because if it wasn’t for Auntie Betsy, I wouldn’t even know what anal leakage was. Ignorance is bliss, I tell you.
6. No barking out the window at scary movement in the neighbor’s yard, because it freaks mommy out. She will end up laying there for 45 minutes, heart racing, unable to sleep, positive that she saw a figure lurking in the shadows of the tree, debating whether or not she should be the crazy lady next door and call the cops about what is most likely the figment of her imagination caused by the unnecessary barking of her dog.
7. If you’re going to bring a raw-hide up on the bed with you, could you please limit it to just one? It’s getting pretty ridiculous when we find 6 half-chewed raw-hides amongst the covers when we decide on a whim to actually make the bed. That’s really gross. Also, don’t drop one off the bed in the middle of the night and stare at it and pace and whine and cry until Dan or I finally wake up and pick it up for you. That’s really annoying.

So if you promise to work on all of this, we’ll promise to try to be better at waking up when you need to go outside in the morning; we know we’ve been very bad lately. We ignored you on Sunday morning when you were ringing the bell like a maniac, desperate to go outside and release your bladder. It was our fault that we fell back asleep only to wake up an hour and a half later to little puddles of pee by the back door. There was nothing more you could do you poor thing, we were being very bad, very lazy dog parents. We know you are completely potty-trained, that things like that shouldn’t happen, and that we are completely at fault.

Anyways, let’s get working on all this, and hopefully someday soon we’ll be able to start leaving you alone outside your kennel when we go to work!

Kisses,

Mom & Dad