Wylie likes having a certain amount of routine in his life. When I get home from work, he runs up and down the stairs (and sometimes slides across the floor) until I take him out for his afternoon walk. When I cook breakfast in the morning, he lounges on the couch, waiting for a piece of scrambled egg or perhaps a pancake to land in the ol’ food dish. And when we come back from our evening walk, if I go upstairs before giving him a treat, his confusion becomes quite evident. (He’s quite insistent about this last routine. In addition to looking back and forth between me and the cupboard – he knows exactly where the snacks are stored – he’ll occasionally go so far as to block my path up the stairs. The message is quite clear, “Hey! Aren’t you forgetting something?! Where’s my treat??!“)
Today was a rough day for Wylie.
It was quite bad enough that no people food was dropped into the ol’ food dish, but to add insult to injury, the ol’ food dish up and disappeared. Being fairly easy going, Wylie came right upstairs and flopped on the bed while I got ready for work.
Wylie perked up a little at the next break from the routine. Usually once I’m ready for work, he gets a couple Milk Bones and then he’s confined to the upstairs for the next eight to nine hours. Today was different though. I went downstairs and gathered my things for work, but instead of coming upstairs with the Milk Bones, I called Wylie to come down. That definitely got him to perk up and once he saw the harness, he got even more excited. He was going to go for a ride in the car!
He enjoyed the ride in the car and despite all the stereotypes, he didn’t put up any resistance at walking into the vet’s office. I took a few steps with him toward the exam room and it wasn’t until he was on the scale that Wylie realized I was no longer with him. (The technicians later told me that he spent a large part of the day upset that I wasn’t around. Clearly he was concerned that without him to keep an eye on me, I’d probably wander off and fall down a well or something.)
When the vet cleans a dog’s teeth, the routine is to put the dog under sedation. This way the dog won’t be as anxious about the procedure and the humans won’t be as anxious about the possibility of being bitten. But because of the sedation and the need for monitoring afterward, it’s an all-day thing. They cleaned Wylie’s teeth in the morning and I picked him up on my way home.
It was pretty clear that Wylie was still feeling the affects of the sedation. Usually he hops right into the car, this time he had to take it in stages, using the doorframe as a step instead of jumping directly onto the seat.
When we got home, Wylie came upstairs while I changed clothes. I felt badly that he’d come upstairs just to go back down a few moments later and felt even worse when I saw him on the stairs. He didn’t exactly fall down the stairs, but it was hardly a graceful descent either.
When we returned from the afternoon/after-work walk, Wylie went back upstairs and stayed curled up on the bed until it was time for our evening walk. From his reduced pace on the evening walk, it was obvious that he was still a little groggy, so we cut the walk short, reducing it to about 2/3 of a mile instead of the usual 1 1/2.
And when we got back, Wylie made it plain that I wasn’t to go upstairs until he’d had his evening treat. He might not have been feeling well, but he does have his priorities.