Relapse and Prolapse

For the first week, our little Georgia was the epitome of good girl, sleeping (mostly) the night through and catching on remarkably quickly to the intricacies of duty-doing.
Not so this week.
Our dog can bark five times in one second and rattle off 218 barks seemingly without taking a breath. I know this: I counted. From my snug bed, and her downstairs in her crate, I counted.
After a couple of hours of unrelenting din and sleep nowhere on the horizon, my wife climbed out of bed, went down and retreived the puppy and fell asleep in the recliner, Georgia cradled in her arms.
I told her not to. I told her it was the worst thing she could possibly do, that Georgia would very quickly expect this sort of thing and bark until she got it. Besides, we haven't been married near long enough to be sleeping in separate beds, on separate stories of the house. But she needed her sleep more than I did--she's just recovered from a nasty bout of pneumonia--and that practical imperative overruled.
I hope she slept better than I did, afterwards. It may seem mushy and unmanly to admit I can't sleep very well without Eva at my side, but I don't care. It's the truth.
The next night we resolved to ignore any barking, no matter how frenzied, with the exception of set "Daddy-gets-out-of-bed-and-lets-Georgia-outside" times (maximum two).
But puppy barks are much like the pitiful miaows of kittens, the screaming blats of babies, and the ringing of telephones: the sound is designed to be un-ignorable. And so I tried the pennies-in-the-pop can trick, to no avail. I tried imitating Mother Dog and growling, to no avail. Finally I went back upstairs and tried to sleep. To no avail.
Eva closed our bedroom door and the noise receded to television level. Since Eva uses the TV for a sleep aid, this is a level of noise I've grown to tolerate, even expect. The night half shot, I finally got some decent dozage in.
It was Auntie Suzie who suggested yesterday that we keep her crated next to us in the bedroom and punish her by removing her to the living room if she whimpered and moaned and barked overmuch. And last night, she slept. And so did I, although truth be told, not well. It will take at least a couple of days before I will stop hearing phantom barks and expecting to have to get out of bed at any minute.
On another note, Georgia passed her vet exam yesterday with flying colours...until we got to the very southern end of Georgia, right at the Florida border. Turns out our wee girl has Rectal Prolapse...meaning part of her bum's sticking out. The vet was concerned, though not alarmed, and said this bears watching. If it gets really bad--and nobody's saying it will, but it could--there's no sure cure, surgery could worsen it, and she'd likely have to be put down.

Hope not. Sleepless nights aside, she's already wormed her way into our hearts.