henry's big day

I took Henry to doggie daycare for the very first time yesterday.

I know, you must be thinking we've got way too much money on our hands and not enough bills to pay.  That's not the case, but we did have to budget this in.

I'd been talking about it for months for a few reasons.  First, if you've met Henry, he's a big dog and he has the energy to go along with it.  With CJ working 24 and off 48, throwing in the once a week twelve-hour shift at the other fire department, our schedules are usually pretty conducive to having a big dog, because there are usually a few days a week where he's out of his crate the entire day, spending the entire day with his favorite person (CJ, not me).  But on those days when CJ is gone for 24 hours, I come home to a puppy who has been pent up in a crate since 8 am.  And since I've been spending a lot of time on homework each day (usually my lunch hour plus at least an hour at home each night), I don't exactly have the time or desire to continually yell at the dog to quit bothering the cat.

I thought our schedules would ease up a bit in January now that CJ has graduated, but this week especially has been rough, and aside from a few hours at night a few times this week, CJ hasn't been home -- meaning Henry has spent more time than usual in his crate.  And since I had plans with friends last night in Lafayette, I felt bad that he'd spend one more long day and night in his crate.

So I broke down, got up early (that was the real sacrifice), paid the money, and dropped Henry off at daycare at 7:15 am.  Pretty much all day long he got to run around with other dogs his size and with his energy level.  They take a half hour "naptime" at lunchtime (I think it's more like they put them in crates for a half hour, but the dogs are still too excited they don't really sleep) and then let them run around the rest of the day.  When I put Henry in the car yesterday, he looked back and actually whined.  I'm taking that as a sign that he had a good time.

I have to admit I'm really being selfish here too.  Because what happens when Henry runs and plays all day?  He comes home exhausted.  When we got home, he looked ready to fall over, so I told him he could go to his crate.  And what did he do?  WENT TO HIS CRATE BY HIMSELF!  When I got back from seeing friends, I took him out to the bathroom and gave him some food to eat, but he looked at me and then WENT BACK TO HIS CRATE BY HIMSELF!

Granted, Henry has started to go into his crate by himself with a little prompting for the past few weeks now, but this is the time I've been waiting for since we brought him home in July.  I seriously thought I'd go through ten or so years of fighting the dog to go in his crate, but now he's going in there voluntarily, without prompting!

Best.  Day.  Ever.