Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Our dog is old, and she hates the rain.  Last night was a deluge of rain and she refused to go out before bedtime, and as she is 70 pounds we can't make her.  So she woke us up several times in the night, and the way she does it is irrational and not helpful:  she doesn't bark, she lumbers up the stairs making a huge amount of noise.  Sometimes she makes noise at the bottom of the stairs when she's really tired.  But though she barks at dogs not on leash and German Shepherds on priniciple, as well as when greeting people at the door, she will not bark.  So you are sound asleep and dreaming and suddenly you hear a burglar sneaking up the stairs to rob you, but no, it's your own dog turning sleep to nightmare.  We cannot negotiate this with our dog.  She does what she does for secret reasons.  Perhaps she thinks its rude to bark at your owners.  Maybe she is lonely now that her companion dog died.  We don't know.  We will never know.  So she has situated herself the way she prefers, and we are getting less sleep, and we know who is really in charge.  We've always known.