My crazy dog

We got Sadie at a shelter. Because my last dog was hit by a car and killed, Sadie had to be a house dog.

But of course, we'd have boundaries.

She couldn't go in the living room or bedroom, which are carpeted. That way, there wouldn't be dog hair hiding in the fibers.

Sadie's first night here, I awoke to find her stretched out on the floor beside my bed. When I sat up, getting ready to order her back to her doggie bed in the kitchen, her tail went "thump-thump-thump" against the carpeted floor, and I decided to make an exception. She could sleep on the floor beside me.

She now has the run of our bedroom. What's the harm, after all? A little hair never hurt anybody.

It was about three months after that when I got lonely watching TV in the living room, evenings. Cliff works nights, and I figured it would be nice to have Sadie's bed beside my Lazy-boy, where I could reach down and stroke her. You know, just for company. So she was allowed three feet into the living room... just as far as my chair. That's all.

When I coaxed Sadie onto my lap for the above picture, she wasn't all that comfortable there; she weighs over thirty pounds, a goodly size for a lap dog.

Because she was beside my chair at night when I watched TV, I thought perhaps if I put an afghan over my lap and put the foot-rest of my recliner out, there might be room for her to stretch out on my lap.

Bingo. Sadie loved it! To such an extent, actually, that for a while I could hardly sit down without her plopping herself on my lap. One reason is that she has a good view through the window to the outside world, from my lap. Sometimes she'll happen to see a neighbor dog and bark at him, hackles raised.

Now, there's only about 20 square feet of my living room where Sadie isn't allowed. And I think we're losing that, inch by inch.

While I'm discussing Sadie, I have to tell you what happened today: Cliff and I were eating our nice, healthy fish for lunch, and Sadie was begging as usual (that's Cliff's fault, he's always tossing her tidbits when he eats). So I gave her a bite of my Whiting. This is a dog who would gladly eat her weight in horse-crap, mind you. But she spit out the piece of fish, sniffed at it, and began ROLLING in it!

If I end up with food poisoning, I'll know she was trying to warn me.