After four years, I was finally going to breakdown the Midwest Dog Crate that has been a fixture in this house.
During various stages of development, this crate has sat in the living room, my home office, and the master bedroom (which is where it now resides). It has served as a training device for my two dogs throughout their puppyhood and a recovery room for one major surgery. While it’s still in perfect condition and the orthopedic bed is in great condition, it’s still just that…a dog crate…and Not the most attractive piece of furniture in our house.
As millions of people do this time of year, I was looking at the interior of my house and making a project list of things to do to get ready for "HOLIDAYS 2010 " last weekend. While brushing my teeth one morning, I caught a glimpse of the crate in the mirror and realized that I hadn’t seen a dog inside the thing in weeks.
We finally have the Labrador retriever under enough self control to be able to hang out free in the house when we are gone. The two dogs have beds throughout the house to rest on during the day. They spend most of the time while we are gone sharing one bed and staring out the front window, waiting.
Then it happened….we got our first genuine windstorm in a couple of years on Monday night. It was a corker. Rumor has it that winds were clocked at over 60 mph in our neck of the woods. The huge trees around our house were swaying and peppering our roof with branches.
As a believer that Gods Plan is absolute and unstoppable, I usually do my best to make my family comfortable during storms and don’t really get too nervous. But…this was a bad one and at one point, I was fully ready to wake up two sleeping kids and EVACUATE. (Luckily the wind died down while I was still formulating my plan).
The next day, we awoke to a house covered with pine branches but mostly unhurt and THANKFULLY, our power had been restored. Unfortunately, for our dogs, at about 7:50am, we experienced a small shallow earthquake. I didn’t feel it…my kids didn’t feel it….BUT….The dogs did.
Later that day, I went up to the bedroom with some laundry and saw………
Obviously, that crate is still a place of safety for our CharlieGirl. When the sky is falling, when the ground is shaking, she has a place to go where she feels safe. We should all be so lucky.
So….for now, we will remain the “highly stylish” people that we are and continue to share our bedroom with a (sometimes furry) wire dog crate. It’s the least we can do for the dogs whom give us comfort and joy and ask for nothing in return.
Incidentally....it seems that Lillian Rose...our rescue kitty...needed some safety herself!
Stay safe everyone!
