Dearest Sam,

I'm starting to get a little worried about you.  At first, I thought you kept putting yourself in the time out crate because you were in pain after the fight and wanted to be by yourself. That was probably true at first, but now, 2 days later, I'm not so sure.  I'm beginning to think you might be a little depressed.

I'm sure your ear and leg are still a little on the ouchy side, but you don't really look like your problem is pain.  Are you sad because I broke up the fight before you got the chance to rip Steve's throat out?  I know that you're not happy that the fight turned out to be a technical draw, but that's only because I pulled you apart before it was finished.  I have every faith that if I hadn't stopped things you would have been the winner and I'd still be trying to clean Steve's blood off of the ceiling.  Try to remember that you're bigger and more experienced and just generally tougher than Steve. Yes, he's a pitbull and has that huge mouth that can clamp down like nobody's business.  But he's not a German Shepard or a Rottweiler - they exert more psi than pitbulls, so you had that going for you.  There's no need to feel bad.  Take a look at Steve; he's not upset at all, he's his usual goofy self. As much as I hate to say it, you could learn something from him and just let it go.  

When we go to the vet today to have your ear infection re-checked, we'll ask him about some different pain meds, maybe something a little stronger. Just in case you're really in pain, not for recreational purposes,. (we'll talk about people and oxicontin use at a later date).  I'd rather not have to talk to him about Prozac for your depression.  I'd like to avoid that if possible.  I've heard about some of the side effects of Prozac and I don't think either one of us want to take the chance that you'll have increased drooling and weight gain.  There's already more than enough drooling going on here.  And at 103lbs, we really need to avoid (or reverse?) any more weight gain.

Buck up little cowboy!  Life is good! 

xxxooo,

Concerned Alpha

ps: do you think you'd benefit from seeing a therapist and talking about all of this?

Memo

To: Beau

From: Alpha

Subject: Sam

Please consider yourself Sam's personal security detail for the time that I'm at work today.  If Steve even just side-eyes Sam, you have my permission to beat the crap out of him.  I know you'll take your assignment very seriously and I appreciate that.

Dear Beau,

I want to tell you that ever since you arrived, I feel completely and absolutely safe whenever I'm at home. The presence of you and Peep and Sam is so comforting and I know that you would rather die than let anyone hurt me.  I'm grateful every day to have you here.  However, we really need to talk about the middle of the night barkfest that's been happening with increasing frequency.

When you were working on the ranch, your job was patroling the property and running off anything you perceived as dangerous all the while barking furiously.  And you were all very good at your job; I never lost a calf to predators after you came to live there.  You slept all day like cats and worked all night and it was wonderful. It didn't matter how much or how loudly or how often you barked because you were outside, away from the house and we didn't really have any neighbors.  But things are different here.

I'm sure you've noticed that we don't have any cows, horses, goats, alpacas, bunnies, or free range hamsters living here.  Nothing (except me of course) needs to be guarded.  Unless you find yourselves another job you're technically retired.  I'm safe in the house at night, no coyotes, bears, or cougars can get to me.  Granted there's always the possiblilty that some lunatic will stop by with a chainsaw in the middle of the night with the intent of using my skin to upholster his couch, but that's pretty unlikely and I trust you to take care of it if he comes here.

What I'm getting at here is that the nighttime barking is almost completely unnecessary and it's getting rather irritating.  Please don't think I'm putting all of this on you; the other dogs are equally at fault.  But as self appointed vice president of this corporation, everyone else follows your lead.  When I'm away or asleep, you're in charge (I know the Weiners think they are, let's continue to humor them so we can avoid revenge pooping), but you're abusing your authority.  

You spend nights sitting in the chair in my room.  Whenever you think you hear a threat outside or if the Weiners go their little woof, you let out your warning cry and the troops all rally, barking furiously and running to the doors ready to do battle.  Meanwhile, you don't even bother to get out of your chair. You don't get up, but you do continue baying.  You're about 5 feet away from my bed and you have a huge voice. You don't even bother to get up and cancel the alarm when I tell you it's all ok.  Most nights I ride it out, but some nights it goes on so long that I have to get up and talk to everyone myself.  The point is, it wakes me up and it takes me longer and longer to get back to sleep every time it happens. Not cool.

None of this really matters on the weekends since I don't need to get up early to go to work.  But on the weekdays it's important for me to get a full night's sleep so that I can be bright and cheerful during the daytime.  Lack of sleep lowers my tolerance level for stupidity and it also creates very unattractive bags under my eyes.  You know I'm not vain, but one does like to look  one's best when meeting the public.  

All I'm asking is that you stop and think.  Ask yourself if there really might be something bad out there that's worth sounding the alarm for.  Or at the very least, get out of your chair and go (silently) and check it out. If there really is something that requires everyone's attention, by all means, rally the troops and get ready to take care of it.  But please stop inciting mass hysteria and hallutionation.  

I don't want to be harsh, but I do want you to consider this as a warning.  If this continues, I'll be forced to demote you from vice president to worker bee and I know you don't want that.  The others all look up to you. Except the Weiners; they don't even look up to me half the time.    I have faith in you!  Go out there and be the best house dog you can be! Adapt and adjust to your new life!  You can do it, I know you can.

xxxooo,

tired and crabby Alpha

Memo

To: Canine Crew

From: Exhausted Alpha

Subject: budget meeting.

I'm sorry, but we're going to have to reschedule our meeting, I'm just too tired tonight.  My exhaustion is due to a combination of a day at work spent running all over the store all day which was preceeded by a night of sleeping in 5 minute increments due to THE FUCKING BARKING THAT WENT ON ALL FUCKING NIGHT LONG.

We agreed several times that there was nothing out there to bark about.  Although I appreciate your vigilence, you're really taking it all a bit too far. Sometimes I think you might all be suffering from mass hallucinations.  One of you (listen up Weiners) starts with a little "woof", then another of you (Steve), runs to the door barking like there are serial killers lined up on the deck just waiting to come in.  At this point, even the White Dogs feel the need to get involved. I then have 2 choices. 1: try putting a pillow over my head and waiting it out. Or 2: get out of bed swearing like drunken sailor with Tourette's and calm everyone down. Either way, I'm not sleeping.

Let's all try to be a little more considerate of each other, shall we?  The next time one of you feels the need to let your imagination run wild, stop and ask yourself how your behavior might affect the other members of the household. None of you are working these days.  You're all free to sit around, watching reality TV, eating whatever you can find on the floor, and napping whenever the mood hits you.  I, on the other hand, am out there fight to survive in the world of retail.  And let me tell you, it's not a pretty world at this time of year.  But I go out there so that I can put food on the table (or the floor) and keep a roof over our heads.  I'm not going to be able do those things if I lose my job, and if they keep finding me napping behind the insulation, that might just happen.  I wouldn't need to nap at work if I could sleep at night and I could sleep at night if you'd all just stop barking at things that don't exist.  Cause and effect my friends, cause and effect.  We might devote an entire meeting to that topic.

I'll keep you posted on the reschedule date for the budget meeting.  In the meantime, maybe you could have a meeting of your own and come to a consensus of what you can do to improve the nighttime noise levels. One of you should take notes and let me know what suggestions and ideas you come up with. To be clear, chewing up the paper and pencils and puking them up all over the house does not constitute taking notes and it's not productive behavior. And no, Steve, I will not provide crayons for you to take notes with.  The last time I let you talk me into that I had to listen to you howling in awe everytime you pooped out a rainbow. No one but you was impressed, trust me.  

I'm looking forward to hearing your suggestions.  I'm also looking forward to a full night's sleep.

Regards,

Your very tired Alpha

Dear Beau, Peep, and Steve,

Please notice that this letter does not include The Weiners, I'll go into why later.  

As for the rest of you, I was only gone for any hour!  I know it's the weekend and I'm always home all day on the weekends (no jokes about my not having a iife), but I told you when I left that it was unavoidable and essentially an emergency.  Sam had to go to the vet. I knowthis wasn't because you were hungry. You had a late breakfast and I told you I'd be home in plenty of time to give you your dinner on time. I was home in time, btw. As much as I hate to say it, this looks like a revenge thing.  I expected better of all of you.

There wasn't even anything good in there!  An empty Dorito bag that maybe had a couple of crumbs and a few molocules of flavor was the only thing I could see that might have been what you were after and that was on the top, you didn't need to sift through everything else to get to it.  And thanks for the extra fun of finding and gathering up all of the combed out hair that was in there, I guess you had to pull all of that apart to look for snacks as well. That was sarcasm, we'll cover that at another time.

Beau, Peep, too bad I couldn't get you in the evidence picture, I know you were in on it, but I must say you can hide rather well when it's necessary.  Steve, thanks for your honesty and good grace to at least feel bad about the whole thing.  Weiners, I know you're too short to bring the garbage can down.  However, being narcs and tattling is so very unattractive.  Let's work on that behavior, shall we?

Engaging in revenge behavior is a very unattractive thing.  I know you're better than this.  I'm still waiting for a group apology and there will be no cookies until I get one.

Regards,

Infuriated Alpha