Trust

Sonny trusts me.

Yesterday morning I encountered Sonny outside my shower door as I do every morning. He comes to investigate the room from which I emerge at this time every day, from behind a curtain, in a towel wrapped head, wringing wet.

This morning as always, he has one of his half toys in his mouth. You know, half toy, a stuffed animal that has been ripped open, squeaker destroyed, stuffing removed, essentially a toy 'skin'. This one is his raccoon. All that remains is the striped tail barely attached to some ratty looking fur. I take it from his mouth and drape it over his nose, telling him STAY as I adjust the 'skin' on his snout. He trusts me, he is obedient, Sonny doesn't move. He sits in my bathroom with the toy hanging on his nose, watching me to release his stay. He might have sat there all day long wearing his toy on his nose, but I release him, laugh and think, what a great start to a day.

Sonny is trusting me that he looks as ridiculously darling as he really does.

I trust Sonny.

Sonny is getting restless and bored staying in his kennel during the day. He is destroying his covers. He nips holes in the old comforters, and then empties them of their fill. It starts out that he is licking the material of the comforter, then he is nibbling a stray thread here and there, then before he knows it, voila, there is the stuffing poking through the hole that needs to be pulled and pulled and pulled, and oh well, thinks he, let's just make that hole a tiny bit bigger so it's easier to get at the fluffy white filling.

I bought him a dog pillow and tied a sheet around it. A comfy bed in his den. I delude myself that the sheet will remain intact. The sheet was not a deterrent. He shredded through the sheet and chewed a hole in the new pillow, which can easily be patched, but I took it away fom him with a scolding and it is now Dolly's pillow. She will show that pillow some RESPECT!

From now on he will only have old sheets for bedding in his kennel.

I feel sorry that he is so bored that he munches up his bed. But during the day when nobody is around I simply can not leave him alone outside his crate. I think that when I am out of his sight, and out of the house, I am out of his mind, and that is when he chews the blankets. When he is out of his kennel when I am home, he does not destroy the bed stuff. It is because I am always home when he is free that he knows I will be looking out for what he is doing.

Overnight last night I tried it.

I left Sonny out of his kennel.

I have noticed that at night, when the light timers turn the lamps off in the living room, he shuts down and lays on the dog beds in the living room and stays there. When I get up to go to bed I have a hard time getting him to go to his crate. I want to know if he will stay until the timers turn the lights back on in the morning.

He already knows I am down the long hall in my room. He is smart enough to realize that my many years as a mom have given me eyes in the back of my head and ears in every room. I am there. And I know that he does not ruin his blankies when he is out on his own.

I trusted him to sleep well overnight out of his kennel.

And he did.