Rover knows best...

Animals know. You know how I know? I know because my animals have lost their ever loving minds.

I have furbabies, even though I know some people cringe at that word, there really is no other way to describe it. You can say my dog is just a dog, but it doesn’t make it true. My female Dachshund, Scarlett, who is prone to shivering in winter and likes to snuggle, has an extensive wardrobe. She will dive into a sweater quicker than you can say “dogs don’t wear clothes.” My girl, Tedda, has personality plus. She’s a half chow, half german shepherd mix who I have babied for the past 13 years. She’s lazy and obnoxiously stubborn and we haven’t decided if she really is going blind and deaf or just using it as an excuse to do what she wants in her old age. My little boy Dachshund, he is a character all on his own, obsessed with stuffed squirrels, we have a rodent problem littering our living room at all times. Cody was a Daddy’s boy from the first moment we got him, while all the other animals are predominantly mamma’s girls.

Then there is THE CAT. She surreptitiously rules the house, lording it over the dogs that she can come and go while they are barred from entering the bedroom area by that pesky iron baby gate. She perches high on our bed and stretches and yawns as they glare at her through the bars while I get dressed in the morning. She sneaks under sofas and reaches out and swats them as they pass by. She knows she is queen. She has at least five pounds on poor little Scarlett who is determined no cat is going to get the best of her. Truffles has been THE CAT and Queen for 7 years. I think she still holds resentment that I not only brought a man into our bed, but two more dogs. She rubs up against Tedda and glares at me like “see, THIS DOG and I are family. Those two munchkin rats do not belong.”

So how did they lose their minds? Every single one of them have become obsessed with me to the point I can hardly function. If I’m in the kitchen, so are they. Tedda lies in the middle of the floor watching me with deep sighs and huffs. The two little dogs move under my feet every time I do. The cat becomes a statue in the barstool watching me with those unblinking eyes. If I’m on the sofa? So are they. Tedda lays in the floor (as she’s never been one to climb on the furniture which would require hefting her old 65lb self up which is way too much energy for her to expend), Cody curls up behind my legs, Scarlett takes roost up against my stomach or back, and the Cat tries to balance on my hip while glaring at the dogs.

At night, the dogs have taken to whining in their crates because they can’t be with me. The cat tries to sleep on my stomach and if I throw her off enough times she settles with wrapping herself around my head and whacking me in the face with her plumed tail. And occasionally if DH tries to cuddle she attacks him or at minimum tries to butt her head up under his hand to move it or divert his attention.

My animals have always been loving, but now they are just suffocating me. They are ignoring DH, and shoved so far up my ass they can probably keep visual tabs on the baby. I distinctly remember Cody and the Cat acting different last time. We had actually suspected I was pregnant this time from some of the animals’ actions before we got the BFP (but were still shocked because of all the cyst issues we were dealing with). So you can be a naysayer about the intuitive nature of animals all you want, but I KNOW that my ANIMALS know. Maybe they are just smarter than yours, but they know. ::shrugs::