Meat Head

We have a diabetic dog.  His name is Rocky.

He wasn’t always diabetic.  We were gifted with the countless vet bills and monthly insulin expenses about two years after we rescued him.  I figure it was God’s way of combining gratitude and humor for a good deed.

Aside from vet bills that could easily make a human convulse, diabetes has gifted us sleepless nights, dog food changes every five weeks, and incidents where his insulin levels drop and someone screams out,  “MOM, the DOG has LOST HIS MIND’.   My children are eloquent like that.

So in an effort to keep things interesting, my dog decided to lose his mind again last night.

At about 2am, I awoke to a strange noise.  Exhausted, I rolled back over.

A minute later, I awoke to the same strange noise.  This time I reached my arm out into the dark room and fumbled for my phone, hoping to locate the flashlight button.

Three minutes later, I was groggily seated upright, it was still dark, and the noise continued.  For the life of me I could not place the sound.  Was something scratching the window?  Did the dog need to go out?  Was my teenage son up rooting around in the bathroom?  It sounds like tapping….plastic…..

Finally, I found my phone and managed to hit the flashlight.

I shined the light around my bedroom.  Nothing.

I shined my light into the hallway.  Nothing.

I shined my light into the bathroom.  Nothing.

The noise continued.

I finally shined the light in a small room off of my bedroom and sure enough, there was Rocky walking directly into an upside down laundry basket, repeatedly.  Yes, you read that correctly.

Now, I should share that this rescued diabetic dog has a special inclination for sleeping in laundry baskets with dirty clothes, clean clothes – it doesn’t really matter as to to the state of the clothes, he’ll sleep in them.  So my first reaction was actually laughter.  I called out “Rocky, what are you doing?  Come lay down in your bed.  I’m tired.”

By this point my husband has made his way over to the dog and we’re simultaneously coming to the realization that the dog has no idea where he is.  He is literally head butting the side of a laundry basket, classifying this as “MOM, the DOG has LOST HIS MIND” moment.

We quickly shuffled him downstairs, busted out some dog food, got him to eat and twenty minutes later he was back up in bed, this time head butting my leg.  But that was only so I would move over, apparently I was cramping his style.

As the dog drifted back to sleep, I laid there with my eyes wide open, the laundry basket reminding me of the endless loads of laundry waiting for me once I got out of bed for the SECOND time today.

Message received dog.

Tomorrow we’ll play a game of “Dad, MOM has LOST HER MIND”, where I head butt your water bowl.  It’s guaranteed to be just as fun.