For the love of dog!

I woke up this mornin' (Dit DAA-dit dit dit -- insert blues lick here) and, like many mornings past, realized I was crowded into a 1x4 foot space in the bed. This is all my fault, for two reasons. One, I allow the dog to sleep at the foot of the bed, and he takes up the space at Argotnaut's feet, forcing her to sleep diagonally if she wants to stretch out. Reason two is my accursed irresistibility, which prompts A. to gravitate to my side. As you can see below, this leaves me precious little room.

I'm not really complaining, but sometimes I think I let my loved ones get away with a little TOO much.

However, spoiling them does have its advantages. The cats LOVE the cat coop, especially now that I've installed some large platforms that allow them crouch and stand guard like little furry gargoyles.

I've mounted a pet door in our bedroom window that allows them to come and go at will. The door came with two fairly heavy plastic flaps with magnetic strips at the bottom, which afford a degree of weatherproofness. But the cats balked at that initially, so I temporarily replaced the flaps with sheets of heavy vinyl weighted with pencils that enable the kitties to push through more easily. When the monsoon comes, I hope they'll be familiar enough with the process that they'll push through the heavy flaps when I reattach them. By that time, I hope to have more than the two platforms outside the portal that allow Cookie and Buster to coexist more or less peacefully.

In fact, the cat coop will probably be a kittycat playground by then, with slides, trapezes, "Habitrail"-type tunnels, and a hanging garden of faux rodents and birds. OK, I admit that spoiling can be fun.