When the dog is here for holidays with me I do very little except take care of her. She seems to be less demanding these days which is a good thing. In March she will be two years old. In dog years , a teenager.
I still have to plan my day around her but it seems less hectic. She eats twice a day ,sleeps in her crate for part of the day , enjoys our little walks to the side of the house, usually leaves my plants alone now, responds fairly well to direction, chews fewer shoes and has almost learned to give the old cat alone time. She would love a longer walk outside but I find she is too rambunctious for my liking and I find it difficult to hang on to her, so we cut the walks short.
Given a big bone to chew on fresh from the pet store she will be a good dog for hours and exhaust herself enjoying it with gnawing and snuffling it all over the house. Almost everything about her has improved with her developing maturity except for the night time sleeping arrangement.
At night, she whines and carries on like a frantic newborn if she is in her crate. She is not going to get bed cosy with me if I can help it so the alternative is to stay up with her and we each take a recliner. Well into the night we watch television and read. She finds it quite soothing to be read to and seems to prefer the classics.
Side by side we get through the night. She gets her ears petted and back scratched and likes to look bleary eyed into my face several times during the night. Sometimes I even cover her up with my extra sweater or a handy blanket. My night gets painfully cramped and cold on the recliner and my sense of day and night is blurred. However, it is quieter. There is no whining. Only loud snoring coming from the other recliner. It’s almost like….
She goes home tomorrow. Holidays are over.
An Embarrassment of Freedom 
Before too long she’ll probably spend more time napping than anything else.
So adorable and so sweet that you spend the night in your recliners. I would do exactly the same. I have an almost three-year old golden doodle, Lola. When she was required, post-surgery, to wear the cone of shame on her head, I couldn’t do that to her. So I also stayed up all night for several nights – sleeping beside her on the couch – making sure she did not scratch at her incision. Lola now sleeps on her own bed beside my bed. At almost three – she is the love of my life!
But on an entirely separate note – I see the WordPress gremlins have been at work. I still get an email when you post, but somehow you did not appear in the list of blogs I am following and I appear to have mysteriously un-followed you. So I righted that. But still – very odd….