Wow, haven't updated this in a long time! I've been a bit busy. Anyways...
My dog always knows when it's time for bed. The last thing I do before I get into bed is put on hand cream. And when I start putting on the hand cream, he gets up from whatever he was doing and goes into his kennel in my room, where he sleeps. I'm just assuming it's scent, because he's never watching me do this. This makes bedtime a lot easier, so I'm grateful for the skill. Recently, however, that sense of smell is making bedtime very, very difficult.
I took him to the vet about a month ago, just to get his shots done and have a checkup. He was having problems with mild discharge from his eyes, so the vet took a look, and determined that he probably had a mild allergy to some pollen or something. The vet prescribed him eye drops, informing me that I needed to put one in each eye before bed.
As you can probably guess, my dog does not like the eye drops. I'm going to again assume he goes off smell, because I try to prepare them (lid off, damp towel to get gunk in his fur out) out of his view, but somehow he always knows when I'm making his eye drops.
Now, instead of going to bed when I put on my hand cream, making life infinitely easier, he hides as soon as I start preparing the eye drops, and I'm forced to play a game of hide-and-seek with my dog before bed.
As stated before, he's incredibly smart, and his hiding places get more and more elaborate as time wears on. At first he just lay really still on the couch, as if he thought that somehow he would spontaneously develop mutant chameleon disguise powers. When this didn't work, he started hiding behind pieces of furniture, and being really, really surprised when I just walked around the furniture to get to him. He's tried hiding under blankets (decently) and pillows (poorly), but the odd lump (or the body part inevitably sticking out) always ruins his plans. He's tried going into his kennel and facing the back, but promptly forgets why he's hiding when presented a treat, and is super, super shocked when after he gets the treat, I grab him by the collar and administer eye drops.
Last night, when I was once more attempting to give him his eye drops, I couldn't find him anywhere. I hunted in his usual hiding places, and some unusual hiding places, but no dog. I was starting to get worried when my covers rustled. I removed them from where they were, halfway off the bed, but there was no dog to be seen, at least not until my dog shot out from under my bed in between my legs, almost tripping me in the process. Now, usually once I find him, the game changes from hide-and-seek to tag. Last night, however, I was fortunate. The covers disguising his place under the bed were not conductive to running on, and I managed to grab him before he could take off. By this time, it was past midnight.
I'm really looking forward to the day he doesn't need these stupid eye drops anymore.
