It’s a rainy, dismal morning: the sort of morning when you don’t want to get out of bed.

Noga refuses to get out of bed on a rainy morning!

As most of you know, Noga is my Psychiatric Service Dog.  She helps me deal with the ups and downs of having Bipolar, PTSD, and a a few other DSM diagnoses.  She takes care of me at night when I get stricken with the Blind Terrors, and she torments me mercilessly when the time for my evening meds rolls around and I am still furiously writing.  When I get depressed she cuddles up to me and when I dissociate she pulls at my pants leg till I come back.

Her payoff–well, part of it, anyway–is that every morning she gets kisses and hugs.   She waits for me to wake up, and is usually snuggled up in the snuggly place between my left shoulder and my ear, which has been wonderful in the cold season; I think I shall have to put in air conditioning in the summer, though, so that the snuggling can continue unperturbed by sweatiness.

Back to the hugs and kisses part.  Noga will not get out of bed without her hugs and kisses.  And by some unit of measurement known and determined  only by her, she must have a certain quantity of hugs and kisses before she will get out of bed.  And there is a specific sequence to the ritual:

1.  Hugs and kisses, especially tummy rubs and kisses on the head, preferably between the eyes.

2. Stretches, with hugs and kisses along with.

3.  Scritches and playful tugs on the hind legs and tail, accompanied by little love nibbles on the active hand, given by the Princess.

4. Standing up and prancing about in the bedclothes, and “killing” some of them with fierce shakes.

When we get to this point, it is time to get out of bed and go outside to “do our thing,” since Noga does NOT use the Electric Toilet (see previous post).

Today was an exception.  Noga awakened, opened one eye, saw through the glass slider that it was pouring rain, and went back to sleep.  I tried kisses and hugs in vain.  She enjoyed them, yes, but she was not about to be moved.  Bed was where she planned to stay.  I could see it in her eyes:  I will stay here all day if need be.  You see, Noga has a morbid fear of getting wet.  She is rather like a cat in that respect.

I really could not believe that after ten hours in the sack she could not have to go potty; so I picked her up and cuddled her for a while, just to get her going.  Then I set her down in the bed, and as you can see in the picture above, her answer was: “No dice.”

Lhasa Apsos are arguably the most stubborn dogs in the world.  They make Corgis look like boot-lickers.  So I snatched her out of her warm bed and bundled her up in her Paddington Bear raincoat and carried her outside in the rain.  She looked like this:

She was not happy, and indeed she refused to look at me the entire time we were outside.  But we got the job done, and when we came inside and took off our raincoats we played chase and had breakfast and everything was lovely again.