Friday night I did it again; I locked another dog in the closet. I didn't mean to, anymore than I meant to earlier last week when I shut my other dog in there. This time I'm not even sure when the dog went in the closet. All I know is that, when I started to go to bed around midnight Friday night, Bailey was nowhere to be found. He wasn't under the bed, on the bed, beside the bed, in either of his two dog beds, on the sofa, in the garage, or in any of the three bathrooms. I was afraid that I had left him outside, so I disabled the alarm and went out in the below-freezing temperatures in my pajamas to look for him. Luckily, he wasn't outside turning into a Chihuahua-shaped Popsicle either. That left only one place--my walk in closet. I checked, and sure enough he was sitting in the closet in the dark. You would think that, since I called his name for 30 minutes straight, he would have thought to bark or at least whimper so that I could find him, but he didn't. He just sat there, silently waiting for me to find him.When I opened the closet door, Bailey came out slowly, his ears slicked back, and his tailed tucked under his bottom. I apologized profusely, as he crawled into my lap. Whereas Bella was so freaked out from her brief time in the closet that she wanted me to pet and fawn all over her, Bailey did not. Instead, every time I tried to pet Bailey and show my regret, he would nip at my hand with that underbite of his. Yeah, he wasn't having any of my apologies. After a few minutes, he got up from my lap and walked to the other side of the bedroom, where he continued to give me dirty looks. I may not be a dog whisperer like Cesar Milan, but I knew what Bailey's looks meant--I was a bad, bad Mommy. Thankfully, he didn't hold a grudge for a week like he did after I had to leave him at my mom's so he could have his FHO surgery a few years ago. He was so standoffish after that surgery that I actually thought my sister had changed his name. This time he was back to wanting mean, mean Mommy after a couple of hours.
Needless to say, I have learned my lesson. I will never shut my closet door again without turning the light on and checking for all things canine first.
