Right Where She's Meant to Be

We've been having issues in this house... old dog issues. I haven't wanted to write about it. That makes it real. But Miss Mabel came back from Granny's house, where the bed is just above knee high and suddenly had issues getting in our almost hip high bed! She has fallen several times and I have cried many nights.

Many moons ago, I wrote of the stairs I purchased for Mabel. It turns out, they flip over if she doesn't hit the exact center of the step! This doesn't exactly encourage her to keep trying! Just when I get to start using them! Angry and frustrated, I took them to our hiking buddy Chloe's dad. He's a master carpenter. I gave him some specs but knew it would be quite a while before I saw a heavy wood version.

I came home and got to work. I found a heavy milk crate that would hold Mabel's weight. I got a carpet scrap from my neighbor's carpet store and some carpet tape secured the rug to the bottom of the crate. That worked fine...until the afternoon I came home from teaching and found it over-turned and Mabel being "weird."

The next day, I hit our magical thrift store again. I found a lovely small ottoman for $10. She puts her front paws up there and I lift her hind legs onto the step and from there, she gets onto the bed. Not ideal but I'm trying to make do until our wood ones show up. Still, I came home one hot afternoon and found Mabel in bed all by herself! But I know she is skittish getting up there without me.

Cut to: last night... I taught a late and rare weeknight class. When I got home at 10:30, I was almost afraid of what I would find. Would Mabel have put herself to bed??? It was chilly on the porch...she wasn't there. I walked in the back door and ...no Mabel in the two dogs beds in the living room. I was overjoyed that she may be in bed! I started down the hall when a movement caught my eye! There she was, right in the middle of the fainting couch!

Pardon the old pic...didn't have my phone handy! I wish I could show you her sweet, sleepy face and the joy that washed over it when she realized I was home!  I was so happy to find her there.

And I had to laugh... She has not got up on the fainting couch all by herself since she was a puppy and I used to scold her for that! (Before she trained me!) But when I bought that sofa at the thrift store, I made a big deal of telling her it was HER sofa! And she listened.

It reminded me of the time I gave my Maggie May her very own futon in the laundry room where she could have access to the indoors and a/c while I worked. For a solid month after I told Maggie the futon was hers, she dutifully took every human and canine that visited us back to the laundry room to show them her furniture!

And I'm sure if you popped by here, Mabel would share her fainting couch with you...