When I made the decision to leave UHC back in September to take my job doing phone triage through the Childrens Hospitals and Clinics phone triage department, I don't think anybody thought that a dog would be the first casualty of that move.
A little over two years ago, we adopted a Papillion named Yogi. It's a small breed of dog, and like many small breeds, this Papillon barked...a lot. It was a minor irritant for us-although our neighbors Shawn and Roseanne would have liked to have had it throttled. We live accross the street from a high school with a lot of pedestrian traffic, as well as people walking their dogs. This means that Yogi's AWACS/RADAR hearing system gets jogged a whole lot, which triggers a lot of barking. When you are trying to sleep during the day, that presents a real problem. We had tried a variety of ways to get Yogi to stop barking: shock collar? Failed miserably. He would scream while getting jolted and still keep barking. My wife had found out about a dog trainer who would have charged almost 500 bucks to train him not to bark. I guess that if I had a pure breed that I wanted to have make some puppies, I could almost rationalize that kind of money. With my daughter's horse expenses and a looming trip to Europe, I could not fork over that kind of dough.
The thing that made me feel guilty is that Yogi really is a nice dog-as long as you don't have younger kids. He's house trained, highly sociable, a ready partner when you are trying to sleep or nap-or just sitting on the sofa watching TV. For me, the barking was really wreaking havoc with my sleep-as well as Becky and Rachel. I found a Papillion Rescue on the web and contacted them. Today, a volunteer came by and picked up Yogi. I know Rachel felt really ambivilant about the situation, as well. She came home from school early so that she could say goodbye. I think with the right home, Yogi will be a great dog.
I am very curious to see how Buddha the Bulldog handles Yogi's departure and absence, because those two really did like to wrestle and tussle around. We are now down to two dogs and two cats. It's been a long time since our animal numbers have been that low in the Adams Ark, but with how busy we are and where we are with our lives, I guess that is a natural progression. I hope that the decreased barking in the house will take everybody's stress level down-the fact that people should be getting less interupted sleep will be a good start.
