I Could Do With More Sleep Please

Are we done with these 'inter-monsoon conditions' already?! Arrrrrgh. The dog is still deathly frightened of thunderstorms! She can deal with heavy rain, but has learnt not to jump so high at low rumbles, but she can't deal with piercing thunderclaps. (She can differentiate between thunder and construction piling.) These Sumatra squalls aren't doing anything for my sleep. I'd really prefer them not to happen anytime between midnight to 4am. I can live with 5am thunderstorms. 

Choya doesn't look for cuddles or snuggles with us in bed. (I also dunwan. Eiyerrrrr.) She generally doesn't hang out with us on the bed. She only jumps up on the bed for one reason, to comfort herself in a thunderstorm in the nights. When she comes up, it's to stomp on us and to walk around restlessly. We can't have that. So I sacrifice MY sleep, take a pillow out to the study because the dog will follow. This leaves the man who needs his sleep a lot more. I need mine too, but he's got insomnia, so I'd prefer him not to have frequent episodes of interrupted sleep. 

Sitting with her in the toilet doesn't work if thunderclaps roll in. She wants the space to run about and work off nervous energy till she remembers to go to her ‘safe spots’. So I swopped out to sleep in the study, and close the bedroom door. This is a much better solution. The couch in the study is way more comfortable than the cold floor of the toilet. The couch can transform into a bed if it's a really long night. I'm damn sian whenever I open the weather app and see 'pre-dawn showers' or 'early morning thunderstorms'. Luckily we've shifted bedtime earlier accordingly for the month.  

The canine barometer starts being anxious about 45 minutes before the storm clouds roll in to our area. When the rain begins in earnest, she starts whining a little and panting too. When the dog panics, she keeps wanting to scale up Mt. Momma and Mt. Daddy. It's highly annoying. She has inadvertently scratched my scalp and quite a fair bit of my body and arms. I told her sternly not to do that again. If she gives me another nice deep scratch, I'm selling her to Baba Yaga.

You do you, dog. See if Baba Yaga will stand for it.