Studies are abound about the positive health benefits of owning pets.  They range from how pets lower blood pressure by reducing stress to the positive impacts they have in helping people with depression and anxiety disorders.  Pets provide unconditional love to their humans and companionship to those who are lonely or are separated from friends and family.

Pets are great.

My pets are driving me fucking batty.

Since G and DJ went on their trip & Indigo has been gone to various events, it has just been me and the animals – 2 dogs and a cat (for those keeping track at home).  Some would comment “oh, that means you aren’t lonely then?” to which I would say “true – I do have companionship of the furry kind”.

But the animals don’t seem to be enjoying the quiet house so have decided to make as much noise as possible……

…….while I’m trying to sleep.

Let me recap last night.

After several nights of her being fidgety in her kennel, I decided to go ahead and let my sweet pitbull sleep with me.  She passes out generally and doesn’t move until forced to leave the bed.  Ok, I thought, this is how I’m going to get some sleep.  I read until I drifted off to sleep….then about 12-12:30am, my sweet pitbull goes into “alert mode”.

“Crap,” I thought, “what did she hear?”

The cat decided to come into the bedroom.  That is what she heard.  And it put my sweet pitbull into “OMG!!! KITTY!!!!” mode.

She loves kitties and has a healthy respect for the ones with pointy paws.  I figured if the cat came into the bedroom, she would do her usual “freeze and quietly watch” reaction.  Nope. I was wrong.  She went into “OMG, IT’S KITTY TV – MUST WALK ALL AROUND THE BED TO SEE WHERE HE’S AT AND WHAT HE’S DOING” mode.

My sweet pitbull is not small – she weighs what feels like 90lbs of pure muscle.  That climbing all over me was not something I could ignore.  Finally, I cased the kitty out of the room but only after I grabbed the collar of the pitbull who was going to go after her.

I shut the door behind the cat.

Only to have my sweet pitbull decide that it was entertaining seeing the kitty paws under the door – and wanted to go investigate some more.

By this point it’s about 1-1:30am.

I grab my sweet pitbull and make her get off the bed and into her kennel.  She isn’t happy but I need sleep so I don’t care.  She proceeds to spend the next 15 minutes arranging her bone to just the right spot in the kennel.  Because her kennel no longer has a floor (thanks to her chewing it apart), the bone was dropping on the hard floor over and over again until she got comfortable.  Finally she settled down, and I thought, “finally sleep!”

Until the cat decided to come visit my sweet pitbull in her kennel.

“Fuck this shit,” I thought and chased the cat upstairs where I shut the door.

“Ok, now I can sleep.”

Nope.

The old man dog decided the change of weather was affecting his arthritis or something.  To help it, he started pacing.  All over the hardwood floors and into the bathroom where the kennel is which would disturb my sweet pitbull each time.   This continued until I finally locked him into the bathroom with the pitbull which usually calms him down.

Except he wanted to sleep where the scale is which means he had to push the scale across the tile floor.  Finally he settled in.  All the creatures, it seemed, had finally stopped stirring.

For about 90 minutes.

I wondered at first what the hell that noise was and what was making it.  It was banging I didn’t recognized.  I knew what it was when it stopped and was followed by a cat yowling out of frustration.  He was trying to open the stairs door.  I don’t know if he found a kitty sized hammer or what but damn was he making noise.  He would then yowl out of frustration that the door was closed – then I’d hear him run up the stairs.  I would drift back to sleep – and he would do it again.

I put a pillow over my head in response to this new noise.  It helped.

His last attempt was at about 5:30am.  I know because that’s when my sweet pitbull decided it was sad and she needed to whimper her support for the cat.

This is when I yelled at the top of my lungs “SHUT UP!! ALL OF YOU!!!”

It was quiet for about an hour.

I got up – let the dogs outside – and opened the stairs door to start the 30 minute lecture the cat was giving me about his poor treatment.  He even followed me into the bathroom while I was showering to keep telling me how upset he was at his treatment.  He stopped when I finally sat on DJ’s bed, petted him for about 10 minutes, then he dismissed me so he could eat.

I’m drinking a triple latte this morning.

I’ll also be exploring if benedryl is okay for animals and if it makes them sleepy – because if it does, maybe I’ll get some sleep tonight too.**

Or fuck, maybe I should skip giving it to the animals and take it myself in hopes that all of their shenanigans won’t be heard through the medicated sleep that benedryl provides.

All I can say is that my pets are most definitely not lowering my stress but are contributing to my insomnia.  Wonder if there is a study about that…..hmmmm?

**please note: I am not going to do this – it’s a joke.