The Day After Christmas always feels a little like The Day After I Was Up All Night Doing Shots of Tequila In That Country Line-Dancing Bar. (Not that I’ve ever had a night like that, of course.) Well, this year, The Day After Christmas actually feels worse if that’s possible. For some reason, hopefully for nothing tragic or bad, our neighbor left one of their dogs out ALL NIGHT LONG. This is the neighbor on the same side of our house as our bedroom. We noticed the barking around 2 or 3 and I asked MrZ if one of our dogs was left outside. That was the first mistake, I should have never woken him up and pointed out the barking. But – I knew he had let some of the dogs (we’ve got two of his parent’s dogs too) out – and I was worried he had forgotten one. Turns out? It was one of our neighbor’s dogs. She has several, but we only heard one barking, so either the others were quietly sleeping outside, or he was the only one out.
Well – MrZ was unable to get back to sleep. He finally left the bedroom to sleep (I assumed) on the couch. The dog finally stopped barking around 5:30am, so I went to go get MrZ to tell him to come back to bed. Only, he wasn’t on the couch. I thought, “That’s weird” and I might have started panicking and envisioning scenes of kidnappings and murders. I looked in both kid’s rooms and made sure his car was still here. I finally thought, “Holy shit. I’m going to have to call the police to report my husband missing.” I let the dogs out to use the bathroom and was heading out to the garage to see if, on the off-chance, he was sleeping out there. Nope. But – I did find him on the way out. He was sleeping on the COLD floor of the laundry room.
(I did not bother to ask about the logic behind that decision.)
He was bundled up with one of the dogs and sleeping with the dog blankets. I felt so bad for him. I woke him up (after thanking the powers that be that he wasn’t kidnapped) and encouraged him to go back to our bed since the dog had stopped barking.
Only, me letting the dogs out, evidently woke the dog up. So he was back to barking again.
He headed BACK to the laundry room as I tried to figure out a good solution that would get my husband off the very cold linoleum laundry room floor. I finally went in and asked LilZ if he would come sleep in our bed (knowing he can sleep through anything) and give up his bed for MrZ. Which is where we are right now. MrZ in LilZ’s bed and LilZ in our bed. The dog is not barking anymore (of course) and I’m wondering what we’ll do if this Neighbor’s Dog Sleeping Outside becomes a permanent situation.
Let’s pray it doesn’t.
Here are a few pictures of the Post-Christmas Fallout. It was a brilliant day and I’ll give all the gory details once I finish going through the pictures.
ohhh barky dogs that aren’t yours. Not fun at all. My sister has been dealing with that for months now with her neighbors. It has even gone as far as court I believe. It really heated up after my niece was born!! I hope it doesn’t come to that for you!
Those pics are adorable. I guess everyone had a good good day!
SUCH adorable pictures!
Hope you get some sleep!
We have been having a similar dog problem with our neighbors. I always wake up in the middle of the night thinking it is my dog only to discover her sleeping nicely on the couch or the foot of my bed.
Hope you get some rest, have a Merry Boxing Day!
Oh how I wish I was cuddled up on the couch at home. Unfortunately, I am at WORK!
These pictures make me want a nap!
Pictures of family sleeping are just too cute!
Hope you can recover today!!
Aww! Those photos are so sweet. I hope you both have today off.
The day after is the worst. I feel like I have died and gone to a hell of my own making. And my big son is not yet back from his father’s house, and when he comes home, I will KNOW that this is torture.
Awww. Christmas naps rock!
Merry Christmas, Zoot family! I hope you all get to enjoy some quality napping today!
The adorableness of your family makes my heart explode! Thank you for sharing the videos from yesterday.
Yikes…we had the same problem with our neighbor a few times. Her dogs barked ALL NIGHT one night, and the next day I called her and left a message that I was worried about them because they were barking all night, and also let her know (nicely) that our dogs were also going nuts from listening to hers. She felt really bad, and said that she’d ACCIDENTALLY left her dogs tied out on the porch (2 big dogs and no fence…go figure) and they slept out there all night. Well, they didn’t sleep, that’s for sure, and HOW did she not hear the barking? Anyway, she apologized, and occasionally I hear her tie them out at 12:30 when she gets home from work, or early in the morning she ties them out to go potty, but if they bark she USUALLY remembers to let them in right away. If it continues, I would nicely just ask them if they could put them in the garage or something…your family needs sleep too, and I’m sure other neighbors noticed it also. Hope you guys rest up today!
I love cuddling with a sleeping baby. That picture makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.
Too bad about the neighbor’s dog barking. I won’t have a dog because I don’t have time to walk it and leaving it out just doesn’t seem right.