Round two to Shadow
In the battle of wills that is happening in our house, round two goes to Shadow. Mum tried taking her out in case that was the cause of the howling. She tried putting her in a crate in the utility, in the hope she might at least not hear her. Nothing worked. Our next attempt is for Mum to give Shadow herbal calmer to see if that helps. She gave her a small amount to see if she can tolerate it and now plans to increase the dose.
If that fails Mum has two more options before she admits defeat and concludes she is no match for a strong-willed elderly and very crotchety dog. The remaining options involve putting a crate into Shadow’s room and then when she goes to bed covering it with a blanket, a bit like you would with a budgie. Her final option will be ear plugs.
Alexa failed
What I forgot to tell you was that in the middle of the night when Mum didn’t want to get up she tried to make the most of the Amazon Alexas. We have one in our room and there’s one in Shadow’s room. Mum told the one in our room to drop-in on Shadow and then used it to tell Shadow to go to bed. She tried it twice. Each time Shadow was quiet for ten minutes or so, but then the howling started again.
Then what?
The last resort will be Mum trying to drag a single bed downstairs without hurting herself. She has said that to be honest even if she hurts herself a little bit it won’t be as bad as not getting any sleep. Then we’ll have to sleep in Shadow’s room. What worries Mum is that if Shadow has to stop doing stairs altogether she could be sleeping downstairs for years. She has also put Shadow on a diet so that we might get to the point where she can carry Shadow, but I think that’s unlikely.
Love
Wilma