{03nov2009: doggy day care Tuesday}

As soon as the weather went from hot summer to cool/cold fall, Darwin's energy level shot up.  We could do a dog park or play date every other day and she'd be mellow on the in between days.  Now she's ready to go regardless if we had just spent 3 hours at the dog park the day before.  And now with this stinking daylight saving by the time we get home from work the sun's already down meaning no quick trips to unlit dog parks on the weekdays.  
So we've decided to start taking her to doggy day care in hopes that a full day of play on Tuesday's will burn off some of that energy (either that or we turn up the heat at home so its a nice toasty 90 degrees at all time).  Today was the first day back to day care after having not gone for a month or so (we've only gone twice before).  When we drop her off it's always the same, eager to go in, but cries and panics as soon as she has to go to the doggy area without us.  We've learned to drop her off and run in hopes that her short attention span will kick in and she'll get distracted by the other dogs around her.
Me being crazy new "mom" was tempted to call at lunch time to check up on her, but I didn't want to be "that mom" and I figured even if they said she was sitting in a corner crying it's not like I would go pick her up.  So we waited til the end of the day and headed over to pick her up.  When we pulled up we didn't see her at the door with the other dogs and I jokingly said to Jason, "maybe she's on time out" (aka in a kennel).  We get in, and I was right. Turns out about an hour before we got there other dogs started getting picked up, and she noticed and had a panic attack.  She started jumping up and putting her paws on the window sills and banging her feet against the windows.  In an attempt to calm her down they put her in a kennel and she laid right down and was fine.  When they brought her to the front and she saw Jason she started shaking like crazy, so scared that we were going to leave her there.  I had to ask the guy working if that was normal for her to freak out so much and he said yes, because she doesn't go often she just isn't used to the routine.  We felt so bad!  But what can we do, it gets dark too early and we don't have a yard for her to run around in, and running in the garage at night isn't really the best option.  
We're going to keep taking her in on Tuesday's and hopefully she accepts this new routine and gets used to it.  Remi is lucky he's starting daycare early and can get used to it at a young age so he doesn't freak out like Darwin.  
We brought her home and in an effort to say "sorry for stressing you out Dar" we gave her a new raw bone, which she is thoroughly enjoying.