(151) Midnight Madness

Yesterday, we traveled to the QC’s where we went to visit my sister. The Bix 7 marathon is run this weekend so traffic and people are everywhere. My sister lives in an older neighborhood near the race start/finish so we were right in the mix of things. When we got to the QC’s we met Juli and JesseJames at the community dog park. This is the dog park that we love to go to whenever we are in town. The dogs love to play with the other dogs and it’s a great way to get rid of pent up energy. When Juli met us, she came with JesseJames and two other dogs, of a friend. So although when we got to the park Max and Beeker were the only two dogs when we got to the park we were soon among friends. Soon, we were greeted by a Giant Schnauzer poodle mix. This dog was adorable. It was big and it had more of the lab temperament than the poodle temperament so it was a big apricot ball of fluff. It was only 9 months old and it had lots of play attitude. He quickly decided he wanted to be Max’s play partner and worked to get Max as a friend. The big dogs played and the medium sized dogs ran and chased each other all over the park. Beeks was so happy running all over with friends. After the big run and when the dogs were all exhausted we headed home to Juli’s to let the dogs cool down and to feed them. Once we had everyone settled we headed down to the village to get some good German food and beer. When we got home, we were all exhausted and headed to bed with our respective dogs. This is when the “fun” began. I say “fun” as in the dentist pulling your teeth is fun!
It has been so hot here that there are heat warnings. The 90 degree weather is mixed with 80 percent humidity making the heat index 107 degrees. It’s damn hot here so Juli has the air conditioner and fan’s on to make her house less humid. It works and all of us were grateful for being able to sleep in comfort. Brad and MAxie opted tosleep in the basement where it was cooler yet. Beeker, however was freaked out by the rotation of the fan in the bedroom where we were sleeping. Both the rotation and the sound of the vibrations caused Beeker to pant like a cheetah. I could not get him to calm down. Part anxiety and part strange environment caused Beeker great discomfort which by association caused me great discomfort. He moved around and around and around the bed trying to find the perfect spot to bed down. Soon he was back up licking my hand trying to get me to entertain him while he found the perfect spot. At that very moment the thunder and lightning started with vengeance. This caused Beeks to again get up and move around the bed the room, the house and back to me. At this point it was about 3:00 in the morning and I had been up three times with Beeks. I took him downstairs to get to the water, thinking he was probably thirsty. Then I took him outside (in the rain) to do his duty. Thinking all bases were not covered I went back to bed. Beeks followed and tried once again to settle, unsuccessfully. As the thunder and the lightning and the rain increased Beeker was once again panting like a wild animal. That was it! I got up and took him down to the basement where Max and Brad were sleeping in cooler comfort. I happily shut the door and went back to bed. It was 5:45AM and I had gotten exactly 3 hours of sleep!