Thursday, October 9, 2008

Day 45

Yesterday was a pretty challenging day at work and, as I let the colors of the leaves soak into my mind on the drive home from work, I made a ton of plans for what I wanted to do once I arrived. They all went out the window as I drove into the driveway and saw the two boxes sitting on the porch.



The crates had arrived!



Now, setting up the crates was not a major source of time consumption. What took the time was removing half the furniture from the living room so that there would be room for them. It isn't that Willie's is so big but Bear's is. Its a 48 inch long crate. Bear and I can both sit in this thing and still have room, which we did yesterday after I got it set up. (He thought that was BIG fun!) To have a place for this crate and Will's, I'm having to remove two chairs and a table from the room. This doesn't really leave us much furniture left in the room because it is a small room to begin with.



I thought about that for a few and decided that, while it isn't the norm to have a couch and two dog crates as the main furniture of a living room, for us this is okay...and an expression of our changing lifestyle. "Less is more" and in our life, the priorities are now changing. We have two dogs that we love and we want to be safe, healthy, happy and with us while we spend our evenings together. The crates in the living room, is thus a non-compromise situation, so our guests can socialize with us in the kitchen...which they always do anyway.



Willie loves his crate! He knew what it was as soon as he saw the boxes on the porch. The funniest thing was watching him wait patiently while I set Bear's up and then escorting me through setting his up. I had just gotten the blanket in and hadn't even moved it into place and he was in his and curled up. If I didn't know better, I would say that he has wanted a crate just like this for his entire life...which he has, kind of.

My mother-in-law lives with Willie's sister from a different litter. Her name is Gia and she has a crate that is a bit smaller than this one but otherwise the same. William has always wanted to spend time in that crate when we visit and tries to, which of course, Gia will not allow. Now he has his own and he knows it. He spent the evening going in and out of it and slept in it all night.

We're leaving the doors open to them when we are here so that the dogs can just go in and hang out if they feel like it. Bear doesn't do that yet, but we have the whole weekend to work on it. The husband is home today as he is dutifully burning up his sick leave before retirement. Tomorrow is his day off and then we have a three day weekend because of Columbus Day which should be "Erickson Day" or "Pocahontas Day" but isn't. I'm thinking that by then we should have him warmed up to the idea that his crate is a good place and hopefully the rest of the stuff will arrive by Tuesday.

So, I'm going to leave you here with this because I have to go get ready for work. Hopefully tonight I will be able to get some pictures up of all of this for you.

Happy wandering!

The Writer...and her dog, Bear

4 comments:

CC said...

It sound like Bear and Willie are so well loved that their "parents" are giving up some of their space for them. Trust me I do the same. I have two crates in our bedroom! My husband always comments when we watch HGTV and they re-do a master bedroom, "hey, where are the crates in that design?" He really doesn't mind it as much as makes people think he does.

Luck O' The Labrador said...

Thank you for your kind congratulations at my blog! I am thrilled to hear that your dogs like their crates. It makes life much easier when they see it as their own little den.

saratogajean said...

Is it Willie's birthday or what? I'm just picturing him curled up and loving his crate.

Chris said...

Good to hear at least one of them is going in and out. i'm sure Bear will to just give him a little time. Sometimes they're a little shy about that. Once he figures out its not a bad thing he'll go right in. Sounds like Willie loves his. One down one to go!