Stairs, Attics, Yards, and Dogs

While I am adjusting to our new house magnificently, the dogs are having a tough time.  They love the house, but they are glued to my side.  Normally, this isn’t a problem and I would be more than happy to have them shadow me around the house while I unload Waterford crystal still in its original gift wraping from our wedding.  The problem is that we have very narrow stairs in this house, so trying to make it up or down these with two dogs literally underneath me has been tricky.  I tried just running faster down them, thinking I could pass them up but they’re quick little boogers.  So far we have all crashed and burned in a giant heap of paws, elbows, and moving boxes at least three times.

And then there is the attic thing.  We don’t have a finished attic here.  Its just crawl space in the roof.  For some reason, my closet in the master bedroom opens directly into this area, with no wall or blockage of any kind.  This morning as I was hanging clothes up in my closet, Molly happened to wander into this area and disappeared into the dark pits of our attic.  I called her and she (thankfully!) came hopping out.  So I close my closet door to keep her from getting back in there.  As soon as I shut the door, she starts barking at the closet like a beast.  I yelled at her and told her to shut up and happily I moved on to finding the perfect arrangement of Chris’ boxers in our dresser.  About 15 minutes later, I hear this faint little whimper coming from my closet.  I open the door and there stands Lucy – covered in insulation and spiderwebs.  Good Lord, dog!  Don’t you know that heat in those kind of places can kill you?!?!

After such an adventurous day in the house with the dogs, I was so ready for our backyard to be fenced in so I could just let them outside and get some work done.  I practically met Chris in the driveway when he got home from work today, kissed him, and put a drill in his hand.  He finished the fence and we let the dogs go this afternoon.  They were so happy!  They have so much more room to run here, and they really, REALLY needed to get it out of their system.  Stairways and attics just don’t always do the trick.