A 7:00am Bark!

At around 7:00am yesterday morning, I was working away in the basement when I heard some deep barking from upstairs.

Normally that would signify either somebody on our front porch; perhaps a car using our driveway to turn around, or our neighbors doing something outside. We live on a relatively quiet residential street and so at 7:00am, those options would be unlikely.

I ignored him and carried on working until around 7:15am, when my conscience got the better of me and I thought that I had better go upstairs and check on Ray. As soon as I got to the top of the stairs, Ray was walking into the kitchen seemingly to meet me!

I went through my usual “What’s up buddy” routine and he came up to me and snuggled right up against me. I gave him some impromptu spa treatment by stroking his ears; scratching the top of his head; massaging around the back of his neck and along his body, and finishing with a good tummy rub! He was so affectionate that I knew that something was not right!

While Ray often displays affection towards me, it always seems to be in a controlled kind of way unlike with Carol who he clearly adores (I have no issue with that because it makes leaving him on his own for a short while much less of a challenge for me!).

After his spa treatment, I gave the “Show me buddy” routine. He just looked at me with his big brown eyes, and then looked at the back door. I opened the door and he, not too enthusiastically, went down the steps and into the garden where he peed and came straight back.

It was close enough to his breakfast time so I took care of that and he seemed to settle down after that.

There are currently no answers as to what that was all about, and probably never will be any. My thoughts, in order of most likely first are:

  • He had a bad dream and woke up feeling confused, and needed to know that all was well in “the den”.
  • He was hungry and decided to try and manipulate an early breakfast.
  • He really did hear movement outside.
  • He wanted to pee really badly.

Any other suggestions? 🙂

28 thoughts on “A 7:00am Bark!”

  3. I say all of the above 🙂 For bad dreams can seem so real that you can actually feel like you hear something and you definitely want some reassurance and extra attention. Plus being woken up early from a bad dream can make you feel hungry, for food solves everything 🙂 And last of all if you have a bad dream it can definitely create a urge to pee!

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  4. Oh jeeezzz … I always hate that when our Ambos simply barked at certain corner of the houses where I see nothing there. It always gives me a chill when he starts to act odd or he growl angrily at something at the back garden. Our garden are open, wide and not much tree, nor bush. We have more flower pots, actually, and so no one, nor anything that might hide behind any of those things, either.

    Creeping me out one night when Ambos simply growl at the our back porch door too often in the odd hours of the night. I had someone installed back lights and it is really bright there. But the more it made him mad and it freaks me out, really …

    But it is good to always check.

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  5. I was also thinking maybe he heard you down there, but because it is part of a routine then maybe it was a dream. Our girls wake up barking every now and then because of whatever their little minds are running on throughout the night. The extra affectionate part shows he was in need of a little extra ease:) He is lucky to have a family that cares and worries for him:)

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    • I knew somebody would have to ask! If you have been reading my Dear Diary Posts, you may remember that trains have been a part of my life from a very early age. My need to recreate those days was, until around 2006, satisfied with a quite large “00” gauge model railway. Making miniature “things”, and wiring tiny little connections started becoming an issue and, at that time, I accidentally came across a train simulator which I purchased just out of curiosity. Here we are 10 years later, and that software company has improved the product such that not only is it much more realistic than a model railway, and can do so much more, but I can create my own routes to represent whatever region and era I wish… and no squinting and trying to focus on tiny things is necessary! I have created a number of UK routes and uploaded them to the company’s site, where they make them available for download to any users who are interested.

      What am I doing at 5:00am? I am creating (and playing with) railway routes, and I can get so much done between 5:00am and 8:00am. For the purposes of context, one of my Routes will take about 300 hours of work.

      Ray is not allowed down there because the stairs are wood and quite steep, and there is a concrete wall at the bottom. He would almost certainly hurt himself!

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        • The houses here are generally built after excavating down around 10ft or so. The lowest level is therefore well below ground level and tends to have quite small windows which are high on the wall(inside) and at ground level (outside). The living room, kitchen, bedrooms etc tend to be at, or slightly above ground level and in some cases (not ours), there is another floor above the “living room level”. The area below ground level is typically unfinished when the house is built, and contains laundry facilities and the heating system. That is what we know as our basement (could be called a cellar in England). In our case, I have finished it off and it includes a fitness area, an office, and a spare room (destined this year to become a music room)!

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  7. Wow! 7 am and you are already busy working in the basement. Ray was probably just making sure you were still in the house, as he had lost visual contact and forgot you had gone to the basement.

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  8. I’d probably go for suggestion 2.
    Movement outside or needing to pee may have led him to bark continuously until you went to see what was going on, whereas a bad dream may not have resulted in a bark, but more of a whine.
    Being in the tent, caravan, another tent and now the boat, Maggie barking at noises outside were always a worry, but she never let us down. The head goes up if she doesn’t recognise footsteps outside, but now we are further along the pontoon, there are only 2 other liveaboards beyond us, and Maggie knows them very well!

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  9. We’ll never know. My cat Jake would occasionally “come find me” and I never knew why. It wasn’t for food (that would be Hazel). Sometimes I thought he wanted affection as it happened more frequently when he was older.

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