Sleep is mostly what I do. Yes, I eat, play, pee, poop and valorously defend our premises from predators, real and imaginary, but sleep is my default, what I do when I’m not doing anything else. I sleep at any hour for any interval, never checking the clock. Humans invented clocks, I think, to torment themselves. There is no verb for oversleep in Dog.
I no more enjoy sleeping than I enjoy breathing. It’s what I do. I take no pills to induce or defer it. I do not pace the night. I do, however, resent being confined in a crate when Jane and Carll are stertorously luxuriating on a soft mattress not two feet distant. Is this just? What right have they to exclude me from the familial fusion at this lonely hour? Am I somehow less because I don’t gab, walk upright or pinch? They love me – I guess – but on their own terms, as one might a slave – to tousle and tussle at their convenience, not mine. I’d contact some committee on canine rights if I could concentrate that long. But heh, easier to go with the flow, roll with the punches, weather the storm, take it in stride, bend without breaking, if you catch my drift.
On the other paw… injustice rankles. Particularly parental injustice. It feels existential, not incidental. To Hamlet too.
The time is out of joint. O cursèd spite
That ever I was born to set it right.
Hence the necessity of a plan. How without undue acrimony to persuade my parentes in loco that they are violating the benign order of being (plus, pissing me off)?
Only one communication mandates immediate release from confinement: an urgent need to extrude – urine, excrement, vomit, whatever – or, in humbler parlance, “I’ve got to go.” One’s plea is granted instanter, no questions asked, quicker than you can utter “Uh-oh.”
In the initial months of my nightly lock-up, I played by the rules, only summoning assistance when an impulse was imperative. Trust me, I like wetting my bed as little as the next guy. I would claw the floor of my crate noisily as if digging my way out. (The oft-overlooked eloquence of Dog!) Carll would heave his heft out of bed with a groan, unlatch, and usher me outdoors. After my squat, Carll and I would relocate to his study to complete our slumbers, so Jane, a night owl, might sleep till she woke. In Carll’s study there’s no cage. I can rest on his work-bed, the carpet, the cool bathroom tiles, an elevated trampoline-like dog-bed, or – my favorite! – his old leather recliner: wherever I please. Optionality flatters creatures with a delusion of agency: freedom means freedom to choose.
I sought, naturally enough, in night’s commencement the same freedom I enjoyed at its conclusion. So I formed a plan. Start scratching my crate’s floor earlier and earlier, whether or not I needed to go. How could they be sure? Soon, I’d abbreviated the interval between lights-out and release from hours to minutes. I overheard Jane saying, “He’s gaming us,” to which Carll grumbled, “Wanna take the bet?”
Briefly they discussed ostracizing me to a far room, but neither’s so cruel. Instead, they elected to leave my crate’s door unlatched, so I could settle where I might. This explains why you find me at dawn curled at their fragrant feet, all three at ease, no we-hour relocation required. Though they’d vowed never to let a dog sleep in their bed, here I am. My world is no longer out of joint. I have set it right.