Sleep and hellhounds
Hellhounds have been on their latest homeopathic remedy* for about three weeks and the more dramatic manifestations of their ailment have, for the moment anyway, subsided.** I’d also like to think that age and maturity are catching up with them but that’s probably too much to ask: however their energy levels aren’t quite so manic depressive, and if the little ratbags would only eat I might be beginning to delude myself into thinking that I have dogs instead of . . . well, hellhounds.
I have also stopped shutting them up in their crate when I go out. They’re still barricaded into the kitchen in deference to my carpets, unless I’m there keeping an eye on them and with a wodge of newspaper somewhere near at hand***, but they are free to lie near the Aga or on a cool piece of floor. This time last year they, which is to say Chaos, was still chewing things, and I didn’t dare leave them loose, and we squeaked through a few of our hot days by the skin of our teeth, and an electric fan set to blow across the crate. I was very grateful that last summer wasn’t the blisterer it had been the summer before, and on the hot days I told myself that by this summer they’d be loose in the kitchen. Well, they are loose in the kitchen, and there haven’t been any hot days.
But I’ve gone on shutting them up at night. I’m a very bad sleeper, and I’m also gruesomely trained to shoot awake at the first sign of canine trouble, and most of you will know that dogs tend to nap and fidget and nap again rather than sleep straight through without moving for hours at a stretch. But I also realise this is sheer cravenness on my part and I ought to be able to learn to sleep through† the sound of hellhound claws on vinyl, and the thump of a forty-pound body changing position. So the last few nights I’ve left the crate door open. I am failing to learn to sleep through the sound of hellhound claws on vinyl. This is the real reason they don’t sleep with me: I wake up every time anyone stands up, turns over, or snorts.††
Last night I woke up to howling. It wasn’t very loud, but it was extremely tragic and mournful and hopeless.
I am, as I say, trained. My feet had hit the floor before my head was awake and were taking me briskly downstairs–clinging to the banister with one hand while trying to find my face with the other, which had my spectacles in it–as I thought, painfully, as one does think at 5 am, especially if one has only been asleep for about two hours and one’s feet are more awake than one’s head is, Oh no, and they’ve been doing so well. . . .
It took me another moment to register, when I arrived at the bottom of the stairs and turned the kitchen light on, that I had two smiling, tail-wagging hellhounds waiting for me, not looking in the least distress. . . . I let them out, on general principles, but they sniffed the early morning air in a thoughtful manner and came straight back indoors again. At this point it began to dawn [sic] on me that that had not been a howl of sudden savage intestinal disturbance, it had been a howl of, Why are you up there and we’re down here?, which I usually only hear a good deal later in the morning when I’m audibly out of bed but not getting dressed fast enough to suit the Isn’t it Waaaaaalk Time Yet? brigade pacing the kitchen floor.
I shut them in the crate, went back upstairs, and put a pillow over my head. They can spend their nights in the crate for a while longer.
* * *
* In the first place, homeopathy works. I keep wondering what, as Cordelia would say, their childhood trauma is, of some of the more rabid so-called ‘quackbusters’ out there who go so hysterically over the top against homeopathy you expect them to start popping off with aneurysms. Maybe it’s because I practise homeopathy myself, but it seems to me that even among all the witchcrafty and/or credulous-deceiving complementary and alternative medical systems, homeopathy is singled out for particularly vituperative attack. Anyway.
In the first place, homeopathy works. In the second place, effects that in standard medicine are called ‘side effects’ mean that it’s the wrong remedy and you keep looking for the right one, you don’t give the patient more drugs to suppress the ‘side’ effects. And in the third place, antibiotics won’t clear campylobacter, which is what the hellhounds have. They’ll only knock it back for a bit, and then it returns. I don’t want to keep whacking antibiotics either into my hellhounds or into the ecosystem, when there’s a better idea.
** Which is to say, they throw up less, and what emerges from the other end is mostly pick-up-able. ^ Yaay.^^ And for the amount they eat, they produce remarkable quantities of detritus, especially Chaos.
^ Except in long grass. Ugh about long grass.
^^ The things that dog owners have to be happy about.
*** The cottage is now so lined with folded up newspapers tucked behind or under pieces of furniture or the corners of throw rugs it makes me look like I have a Strange Obsession. Well, I do, although not with newspaper.
† Sure I can. And isn’t that a centaur cantering past?
†† I’ve never been a good sleeper, and I’m getting worse. This is also a big part of the reason Peter and I don’t live together any more. You sleep down the hall from your husband and it’s kind of pathetic. You sleep in a separate house and it suddenly becomes a powerful choice of manifest autonomy. It runs both ways too: at the old house I was keeping Peter awake as much as he was keeping me awake. And furthermore, this way, I also get my own kitchen.
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They can spend their nights in the crate for a while longer.
::snork:: Ooops. I just spit crumbs over my keyboard when I laughed.
Dogs. Love ‘em. :)
****** Which is to say, they throw up less, and what emerges from the other end is mostly pick-up-able. ^ Yaay.^^ … ^^ The things that dog owners have to be happy about.
how true! just yesterday a friend and I were fulminating on our respective dogs’ poo, texture, smell (OK TMI :)) but any dog owner understands
and thank you for all those rose links – boy! that reviewer had their nose out of joint, but someone who achieves miracles against the odds is bound to step on a few toes… and we get the roses to enjoy, so YAY!
Yes, I’m glad other people are having that reaction. I keep imagining this person as designing one of those gardens that are mostly steel beams with a few long spiky grasses. I *like* Thomas’ vision.
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One would think that with how late you go to bed (ahem) you would be able to get to sleep. Then again, you probably just have a wacky sleep schedule. Can’t imagine why.
I’m glad the hounds are doing better.
“But I also realise this is sheer cravenness on my part and I ought to be able to learn to sleep through† the sound of hellhound claws on vinyl, and the thump of a forty-pound body changing position. ”
Sorry, sleep can’t be learned. I wish it could.
Indeed.
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s**t
Sorry, the previous comment about sleep not being learned was mine. [D####d computer}
D####d computer}
******* LOL.
(And thank you.)
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Is this the Angelia on BBBD list? Yet another thing we have in common, if you are.
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Please choose a user name.
It took me another moment to register, when I arrived at the bottom of the stairs and turned the kitchen light on, that I had two smiling, tail-wagging hellhounds waiting for me, not looking in the least distress. . .
Hilarious. :) Shortly after Big Cat started his insulin treatments, he woke me up around 2 am with the most agonized, drawn-out, “I think I might be dying, give my love to the mice” howling I have ever heard in my LIFE. I’m a light sleeper as well–shot out of bed, frantically groping for the light… only to find that he’d found a favorite toy under the couch and was apparently lovingly serenading it with this horrible noise while simultaneously kicking the hell out of it. He had NEVER made that sound before when he wasn’t in tremendous intestinal distress… but for a number of nights running, it became his “I LOVE YOU, CATNIP TOY!” noise, reserved for use at approximately 2 hours after I got to sleep. He’s stopped doing it lately; I’m not sure if this was somehow an effect of the new medication, or if he just lost the toy again.
ROTFL!!!
You mean you DIDN’T LOSE THE TOY FOR HIM?? –I’m sorry, I may just have lost all respect for you. :)
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You mean you DIDN’T LOSE THE TOY FOR HIM?? –I’m sorry, I may just have lost all respect for you. :)
I concede my failing here–chalk it up to unclear thinking at 2 am. Ah well… Respect is a fickle thing. :) As are cats. I think he probably just fell out of love with that particular toy after a few nights of unbridled passion. Love ‘em and leave ‘em, that’s Big Cat for ya! (Leave ‘em all damp and chewed up and oozing stuffing, sure… but leave ‘em all the same.)
Hellhounds, on the other hand, are still bringing you disintegrated toys long after there’s anything to play WITH. When they nail your hands, they *do* let go, but by that time it’s a little OWWWWWWWWWW late. . . .
****** “I think I might be dying, give my love to the mice”
This is sooo funny! Tell the truth, you’ve hidden the catnip toy in the dustbin haven’t you!
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No, she hasn’t! She isn’t DRUEL enough!!!!!!
****** No, she hasn’t! She isn’t DRUEL enough!!!!!!
definition of druel – cruel unnatural disposing of catnip toys, behaviour of hellgoddesses, painfully bad spelling committed when minimally drunk…
I think playing the piano badly probably comes into it too. :)
No, she hasn’t! She isn’t DRUEL enough!!!!!!
LOL! No, I’m afraid not. I am the one who presented them last holidays with a toy called “Sid the Squeaking Squid,” which has a motion sensor and a sound chip in it. A more annoying toy one could not conceive of… and yet I continue to find it hilarious every time they drag poor Sid out from under the furniture and I hear his pathetic little “eep eep eep” noise as they pummel the crap out of him.
Hellhounds, on the other hand, are still bringing you disintegrated toys long after there’s anything to play WITH.
Oh, we’ve been through that phase too–I recall a little Real Fur Mouse who was thrown and fetched so often that all his Real Fur fell off in shreds and he was just a tiny plastic body with a scrap of a tail glued on. There wasn’t even catnip in that one. :)
Yes but an over-excited cat draws blood. Hellhounds recognise flesh as they sink their teeth into it. :)
****At this point it began to dawn [sic] on me that that had not been a howl of sudden savage intestinal disturbance, it had been a howl of, Why are you up there and we’re down here?****
And they know that a howl at night (well, in the dark, but 5:00 a.m. is pretty well night to me too) will fetch you down really *fast*. The problem is that you have to check it out anyway, blast and drat. But on the bright side, you didn’t have to wash the floor! :)
****The things that dog owners have to be happy about.****
You don’t want to get a bunch of dog people together in a public place like a restaurant where other people can overhear their conversation. Talking about pop is bad enough, but when the talk turns to breeding bitches you can really get some odd looks.
****homeopathy is singled out for particularly vituperative attack****
I don’t know that I’ve seen a lot of vituperation, but I think what gets to the people who are entirely committed to allopathic medicine is the homeopathic idea of molecular memory and the fact that the remedies get stronger as the dilution of the active substance increases. This is immensely counter-intuitive and I imagine provokes a reaction such as “you might as well just give people distilled water, etc. etc.”
****It runs both ways too: at the old house I was keeping Peter awake as much as he was keeping me awake.****
My husband and I developed bad and contradictory sleeping habits when he was working in another city before he retired. He would fall asleep in front of the TV by 9:00 or so and get up at some evil early hour and go to the office by 6:30 or 7:00. I stay up late into the wee hours and get up rather later than 7:00. This is not a good situation when you share a bed. (Especially when the early sleeper wakes up at 4:00 and turns the blasted TV on, which wakes me up even with the sound off.) So he still falls asleep in front of the TV and stays there, and I go to bed at 2:30 or 3:00 and fall asleep over a book . . . It’s a good thing we have a big house. :)
****The things that dog owners have to be happy about.****
You don’t want to get a bunch of dog people together in a public place like a restaurant where other people can overhear their conversation. Talking about pop is bad enough, but when the talk turns to breeding bitches you can really get some odd looks.
********* I think it’s critter people generally. I’ve seen entire rooms clear to get away from graphic horse talk. :)
****homeopathy is singled out for particularly vituperative attack****
I don’t know that I’ve seen a lot of vituperation, but I think what gets to the people who are entirely committed to allopathic medicine is the homeopathic idea of molecular memory and the fact that the remedies get stronger as the dilution of the active substance increases. This is immensely counter-intuitive and I imagine provokes a reaction such as “you might as well just give people distilled water, etc. etc.”
********* There’s that too, but the real viciousness is about fear, I think. And fear of competition from the entrenched mafia of allopathy and Big Pharma is . . . pretty interesting, when you think how powerful the medical and pharmaceutical industries are.
****It runs both ways too: at the old house I was keeping Peter awake as much as he was keeping me awake.****
My husband and I developed bad and contradictory sleeping habits when he was working in another city before he retired. He would fall asleep in front of the TV by 9:00 or so and get up at some evil early hour and go to the office by 6:30 or 7:00. I stay up late into the wee hours and get up rather later than 7:00. This is not a good situation when you share a bed. (Especially when the early sleeper wakes up at 4:00 and turns the blasted TV on, which wakes me up even with the sound off.) So he still falls asleep in front of the TV and stays there, and I go to bed at 2:30 or 3:00 and fall asleep over a book . . . It’s a good thing we have a big house. :)
********* Indeed. In a small house . . . Peter goes to bed early too and I can hear him snoring *downstairs through the sound of my piano playing.* It’s not the TV with him, but the radio. (I can hear it now as I type.) Even the old house wasn’t big enough. :) I too–as you know!–go to bed late, and fall asleep over a book. Maybe it’s an X/Y chromosome thing. :)
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Yeah! Hellhounds are doing better!
Gr ass I mean grass problems… Glad I’m not the only one who has to keep a paper towel roll by the door to make sure only the dog comes into the house.
“”Maybe it’s because I practise homeopathy myself, but it seems to me that even among all the witchcrafty and/or credulous-deceiving complementary and alternative medical systems, homeopathy is singled out for particularly vituperative attack.””
I think when you practice something, you notice more. Most straight people don’t notice that 99% of the advertising is straight, although 99% of the population isn’t straight, most white men don’t notice that they have a born advantage, and … I’ll stop there before I get too settled on my soap box.
Here in Germany homeopathy and alternative medicine are becoming more and more popular. There is a national accreditation program, although it’s hard to get through. Many people who practice homeopathy say that the medical doctors control the final accreditation and, for fear of competition, only allow a certain number to be accredited per year.
Personally I visit my homeopathic doctor twice a year. He’s been much more helpful than any medical doctor. Not only does the treatment work, he actually listens to what I have to say.
Rebecca WinkleBeam
I think when you practice something, you notice more. Most straight people don’t notice that 99% of the advertising is straight,
******** You start to, when you have unstraight friends. And then you find yourself second guessing . . . wait a minute, are they actually suggesting–??? One of my pet peeves is admitting that non-straightness exists, but presenting it as kinky. Or maybe I’m just too old and boring and un-hip to see this as a compliment.
although 99% of the population isn’t straight, most white men don’t notice that they have a born advantage,
******* This is one of *my* pet rants. White men do secretly know that They Have It All. Therefore why aren’t they HAPPY? If they aren’t happy when they have it ALL, they certainly aren’t going to let anyone ELSE have any.
and … I’ll stop there before I get too settled on my soap box.
******** It’s getting crowded up here. :)
Here in Germany homeopathy and alternative medicine are becoming more and more popular. There is a national accreditation program, although it’s hard to get through. Many people who practice homeopathy say that the medical doctors control the final accreditation and, for fear of competition, only allow a certain number to be accredited per year.
********** Yes. I believe that. I don’t know that much about Germany homeopathy, but I know that the French, the German, and the British ‘schools’ don’t get along very well.
Personally I visit my homeopathic doctor twice a year. He’s been much more helpful than any medical doctor. Not only does the treatment work, he actually listens to what I have to say.
************ YES. THAT’S ONE OF THE THINGS HOMEOPATHY IS ABOUT. ***LISTENING TO THE PATIENT.*** For ****’s sake, it’s the PATIENT’S life, body, mind and spirit!!!!
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***LISTENING TO THE PATIENT.***
All health practitioners of any stripe should be doing this, mind you–any doctor worth his salt knows that listening comes first. The unfortunate thing about more traditional western medicine is that as specialization increases, many people who aren’t necessarily interested in PEOPLE, per se, are drawn to become doctors as well. :(
One of my good college friends is a family practitioner in a standard med clinic; another is a licensed acupuncturist and herbalist. Both do great things for their patients, and I think this largely stems from their ability to listen and their genuine interest in the folks under their care.
“”"One of my pet peeves is admitting that non-straightness exists, but presenting it as kinky. Or maybe I’m just too old and boring and un-hip to see this as a compliment.”"”
Now you’ve hit on one of my pet peeves and sore spots. But I need to print out my train schedule,* so I won’t get up on my soap box again. ;) Rest assured that you’re not old and boring and un-hip in your view. I know many people with the same complaint, myself included.
Rebecca WinkleBeam
*Reiki II training weekend. Maybe Reiki’s even stranger than homeopathy. :)
*Reiki II training weekend. Maybe Reiki’s even stranger than homeopathy. :)
********* No, no! Perfectly matched in strangeness! :)
I really don’t understand the general teeth-gnashing and hand-wringing about homeopathy, either. If you’ve got a problem standard Western medicine doesn’t adequately address, and you want to try an alternative approach, homeopathic treatment has virtually no risk, which is hardly the case with many of the other alternative approaches. There’s no manipulating of spinal columns, jabbing needles into skin, or strong herbal concoctions to ingest. Which is not to say that there’s no value in the riskier approaches, but they *are* riskier than taking a solution with trace amounts of the substances used in homeopathy.
Now, If a homeopath (or accupuncturist or herbalist, etc) claimed to be able to cure somoeone’s advanced metastatic liver cancer for a nominal fee, *that* would be something to get up in arms over, but that sort of thing is a problem with the practitioner, not an indictment of the approach itself.
Thank you. :)
Although even advanced metastatic cancer is worth having a go at with homeopathy–there are some homeopaths that specialise in cancer, and the **responsible** ones are happy to work alongside medical doctors or whoever else. Any practitioner of any sort who claimed to be able to cure it is a charlatan or a fool or worse, but if you get the right homeopath at the right moment you can cure just about anything. I really do believe that homeopathy HAS all the answers, the problem is with the limitations of individual homeopaths.
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Fortuitous that today’s post was about hellhounds, so it won’t seem terribly off topic when I talk about my wonderful dog experience yesterday.
I live in a little apartment in a big city, and although I always had a dog growing up, I don’t have one now. Yesterday I took a bunch of the kids I work with (at risk teens) to volunteer at an animal shelter. We got to walk and play with the dogs and it was just great. You can come regularly and walk the same dog each time and trick yourself into believing that this dog actually belongs to you, you just don’t have to deal with any of the problems (like an inability to take vacation, and mysterious doggie illnesses, and waking up in the middle of the night…).
I’m pleased about that. There’s a program here too, where the women’s prison upstate has a dog training program, the women take courses and then receive a puppy to train to become a service dog. The dogs are sent to loving homes in the city every weekend to socialize and learn how to be in the big world, and I always wanted to apply to be one of those loving homes, but they require such a thorough background search (a good idea, I’m sure), and since the family pets were never really MINE, I don’t have the people to make recommendations for me about how great a pet owner I am… So this animal shelter thing is just way easier for me. It’s sort of like how you have Connie. I can have a dog. :)
Yay,
alix
It’s sort of like how you have Connie. I can have a dog.
******** Yes, I understand PERFECTLY. Yaay.
And dogs are NEVER off topic. :)
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“Last night I woke up to howling. It wasn’t very loud, but it was extremely tragic and mournful and hopeless.”
Lament of the Hellhounds
(to be howled to the tune of ‘My bonnie lies over the ocean’)
Our goddess has gone off and left us
Our goddess has gone up the stairs
Our goddess has gone to get bed rest
Oh how do we know she still cares?
Come back, come back,
Oh come back dear goddess to us, to us
etc.
:)
Oh, gods, I’m still laughing . . . I’m too feeble from the (*&^%$£”!!!! ME to laugh this much . . . thank you!
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“Lament of the Hellhounds”
Hilarious!
I could see the Hellhounds gathered around the bottom of the stairs, perhaps with tartan accoutrements, howling….
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Have you ever tried ear plugs? I use them all the time. If my husband breathes hard, I wake up. If the dog shifts (he sleeps in our room) then I’m dead awake. But I’ve found that ear plugs shut out the little noises while still allowing me to hear the important ones, you know?
I’ve heard that “come play with me” howl many times. Fortunately not so much at night now. Well, Mesquite is 6 years old now, though he still plays like a puppy. He sleeps, however, like a log now.
Pet the hellhounds for me.
I can’t sleep in ear plugs. Believe me, I’ve tried. I’ve even bought EXPENSIVE ones.
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I can’t shut out my husband’s snoring, although now that I’m on the proper brain meds, I can almost do it.
I can’t say how many nice hotels I’ve slept in the bathroom or the closet thereof. It’s humiliating, not being able to sleep like neurologically typical people. Now that I *can* sleep easier, I do it recreationally and then just because I can, in mid afternoon. I also have a sack of lavendar–I call it my sleep snake– that drapes over my eyes and ears to help push my brain into shutting off. That’s the problem I always had–getting the brain to shut OFF.
Husband can’t understand my recreational sleeping, but for me it’s like driving was when I finally got my license at 29. I was happy to give folk rides and to explore places I’d been near but never *there*. I could get to concerts and (Regency) dance parties without having to rely on anyone else.
I still have a hard time getting to sleep sometimes, no matter how tired, but it’s nowhere as difficult as it had been. In 2001, I had the first restful sleep (under the influence of topomax, my first mood stabilizer) I’d had in 20 or more years. I actually woke up rested on September morning, but to my amazement. Husband never could understand why I was so tired in the mornings, either. It’s sort of like a non-migraineur confronting a migraineur in the midst of a 9-10 pain rating migraine that’s been going on for several days. They just don’t get it.
Well, good luck. Whatever works!
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“I was keeping Peter awake as much as he was keeping me awake.”
My husband says that the combination of me and menopause is a bit like having a particularly agitated egg beater in the bed with him (toss, turn, sigh, turn, toss, sigh, doona off, sigh, doona on, sigh, drink of water, sigh, etc…)
He has also found that hot flushes are contagious. He often wakes up in a welter of sweat to find that I’ve heaved the doona off me so vigorously that my half has landed on top of him, and he’s sweltering under a double layer.
Pay-back for the snoring, I say, but then he has the nerve to accuse me of snoring, too!!
I have to say that it was all more peaceful all round when he was banished to the back bedroom to avoid infecting me with his cold just before I had a medical procedure last week.
LOL! Yes, this is the true story of a lot of twenty-thirty years after the hearts and flowers THE END of your favourite novels.
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Especially since the advent of sleep apnea machines! :)
I will be honest and admit that I know very little about homeopathy, just the little I googled when I first found this website. BUT – why attack it? I mean, if it’s working, and regular big pharma isn’t, like, uhm, YAY? Luckily, I haven’t had anything very serious lately (scare some years ago that I had hepatitis, which mainly just resulted in me looking like a drug addict because they KEPT taking blood, ewww), but if I did, I would absolutely try homeopathy. MUCH better.
Also, it turns out that if you’re me, and you’re depressed, starting to run again and cut down on crappy fake sugar and McDonald’s works better than the prozac. Hannah: 1, Big Pharma: 0. HA!
The dog eats rocks, so I don’t worry so much about her.
Nutrition is a HUGE issue and a HUGE rant–series of rants–with me. **GOOD FOR YOU** for cutting down on junk food!!! I’m not a purist–try to take away my chocolate and my champagne and you **die** :) –but I also eat mixing-bowls-full of salad etc.
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