Tug's long week

So, I come back from a week away and Mama leaves for a few days. It was so hot and muggy that I wouldn't take the boy out for walks and he got cabin fever. We did play indoors a lot and I sent him out on the porch a few times and stayed within sight (but in the house and the AIR CONDITIONER). I'd throw ice cubes out onto the porch- he knows the word "ice" and loves the stuff- and then I'd watch him play. I figure it'll take him at least a week to get back into routine plus we have a holiday weekend coming up.

Tug is trying so hard to talk to us. He's started a new type of barking which is not too loud and done staring straight at us. It's his way of trying to tell us something and we are, frankly, too stupid to get it. He does do it to get a particular toy that may be out of reach or to ask us to go look out the window with him but other times??? I have absolutely no clue what he wants...

While Mama was gone, I would get up in the middle of the night and so I'd let Tug out to go "to the papers." That way his little bladder wouldn't insist we get up at an ungodly hour like 7:30 AM. We'd done fine the previous nights but on the last one I was so sleepy that I didn't latch the door to his crate again. We put a little drape over his crate and he knows that's the signal for settle down and sleep. So I'd pulled that back over the door and collapsed back into bed (I was sleeping in Mama's room to lessen the "bark" potential). I got up because Tug was doing his normal AM snuffling and dancing in the crate and then I noticed the drape was hanging funny. I pulled up the drape and the door is open enough for him to have come out but he never did! What a sweet boy (or a bona fide moron- your choice)!