Doggie Heaven Hotel

Dishwasher Necklace

Willie sleeping on my 1920's hand carved mohair couch instead of his dog bed 

I would like to start off with the old Will Rogers quote “ I never met a dog I didn’t like.” 

What?

O.K. so I put a little Doggie Heaven spin on it. 

It’s true I haven’t had a dog here at Doggie Heaven that I didn’t end up falling in love with and hating to see go.

The good news is that most come back again and again.

That said, there are certain dogs that end up costing me more than I make watching them. Well atleast some days they do. 

One some day was yesterday.

He is one of my all time favorite doggies, who I like to call Freight Train Willie, because, as I’ve said before, he is a cross between a lab and a freight train.

It all started out innocently enough with the chewing, peeling, and deconstruction of three tennis balls.

Next came the chewing peeling and deconstruction of two baseballs.

The tennis balls were no big deal, all I would have to do is a few laps around the tennis courts downtown with my dog and I’d have three tennis balls in no time. As for the baseballs, a little loitering around the baseball field with my dog ought to fix that. No Bigge.

A little while later, I was cooking in the kitchen. I had the dishwasher open and well...I left the room to get something from the pantry. As I left the room, I heard Willie doing the pre-wash cycle—not an unusual sound in our house.

All of a sudden I heard a terrible crash. My 11-year-old son came running in from the living room. He was thinking that a wall cabinet had fallen down.

Rats Among the Ruins.

I want to tell you a story. I have lots of stories because I board dogs. I love dogs. I board them at my house. Don’t get me wrong I don’t keep them in kennels; I keep them in my living room and my bedroom.

Their favorite room is the kitchen I think, when I’m cooking, of course, or maybe it’s under the dining room table when my family and I are eating dinner. With two boys eating meals, there are always spills and food landing on dog heads.

Moondoggie the rat-chaser

Actually, food never lands on my dog’s head—she just catches it and eats it before gets near her head.

Besides loving dogs, I also love to garden. The problem is the two don’t mix—dogs and gardens—they don’t mix at all.

I was inspecting the only part of my garden that I consider to be filled in and planted the way I like it—a huge raised bed attached to the side of my house.

I was almost finished with this part of my garden. There’s no dirt visible—this is what I consider finished, if you can’t see dirt. To my horror, I noticed a cement column with a cement container on top had fallen over, taking with it a fuchsia tree, a princess plant, and a couple of azaleas on it’s way down.

I couldn’t figure out what had happened.

I happened to be with a friend of mine. When my shock wore off I walked toward the side door of my house. I was standing at the bottom of the steps of my side door deck.

Through the corner of my eye, I saw my dog followed by a dog I was dog-sitting, Willie (part lab, part freight train) both jump into the raised bed. I turned to tell them to get out when something came hurtling from the raised bed towards me.

I thought it was a ball; something that one of the dogs had grabbed and lost their grip on sending it flying in my direction.

I was wrong.