Last night when it was time for bed I took down the child gate from the stairway door,  Bess ran up with me and low and behold there was Lucy kitty sitting on the stairway ledge.  Bess luckily didn’t see her and I was able to get Bess to go back downstairs. It’s amazing what a burst of energy and an excited voice will do to get a pup to obey. With Bess downstairs and the stairway door closed I scooped Lucy up and took her downstairs where I was hoping the pups were otherwise occupied.  Um, yeah so I quietly opened the door and there are all three pups staring at us. Bess barked, Lucy clawed to get down and shot up the stairs with Bess in close pursuit followed by Bonnie and Belle and me saying “Leave it Bess Leave It!”

Lucy ran and hid under the bed with the pups  Bess of course in the lead, running around the bed barking trying to get closer to Lucy.  I managed to get the pups out of the bedroom and closed the door.  I then called to Lucy, who from under the bed immediately started to tell me how she felt about all of this  came out from under the bed, let me pick her up and snuggled close purring all the while.   I simply held her for a few minutes, then I wrapped her up in a sweater to try once again to get her downstairs.  With Bess barking I tried to explain to Greg what had been happening and he was able to get the dogs into our bedroom while I got Lucy out.

Once downstairs Lucy jumped out of my arms and ran into the front room.  When I went back upstairs  I told the pups it was now bedtime and time to settle down. It took a bit but they finally did.

This morning I went out to the front room where Lucy greeted me and seemed calm. The pups were out in their pen so I carried her to her spot on the desk in front of the computer but she wasn’t ready yet and went back into the front room and that’s ok. We’re taking this slow, we don’t have a choice in that because that’s how Lucy needs it to go.  All in all we are making headway, Lucy isn’t  nearly as upset as she would have been a few days ago.  Bess even though she is barky and bouncy is listening and does “leave it” when we tell her to, well after hearing it a couple of times.   So we’re getting there and that’s encouraging.