Chez Chiens
After completing a grueling 1500-mile round-trip foray to Phoenix and back over the weekend, I decided to complete the dog house I'd started before we left.
I'd finished the basic bones of the structure, the four walls attached to supports, and there was a surprising amount of scrap lumber on the floor of the garage. I put together the supports for the floor (yes, yes, I know that there's a technical term for them like joist or fleen or squootch or some such, but I don't care - it's a dog house, for crying out loud) and then had a horrible time getting the floor to fit exactly. Cutting the corners out to make room for the supports turned out to be the tricky bit, but in the end it went together just fine. I got the Pirate to attach the roof with hinges (for easy cleaning) and the entire thing went upstairs. With the addition of an old blanket (one that the little Goddess was loathe to give up), it became Esme's new palace.
Dagmar, on the other hand, is choosing to sleep rough rather than enjoy the comforts of the new digs. This tells me a couple of things: first, she's got a better-developed sense of refinement than her sister. Second, she's stockier and has more fur than Esme, so it's likely that she just finds the whole thing too hot for her taste. Esme tends to tremble with the cold as long as she's standing still (although when she's running, she radiates heat so effectively that picking her up and putting her down the front of your sweater becomes quite attractive, to those folks who don't mind a sweater full of smelly panting dog) so she has firmly established her presence in the new place.
The architecture reflects my own style - the fusion of lots of enthusiasm and precious little skill. The Pirate pointed out that it makes a nice companion to the chicken coop, and keeps a sort of symmetry. I think that the rustic beauty of the unfinished plywood, the steampunk elegance of twice as many screws as were necessary and the lack of any right angles whatsoever perfectly reflects my own philosophy of life, namely "Wow! We have dogs! I guess we'd better build them a house now. Do we have any wood?" A lesser person might give in to the lure of PetsMart, the temptation of a Dogloo, but not I! I am a builder! A pioneer! A maker of my own destiny, creator of my own paradise!
Kinda cheap, too.
I'd finished the basic bones of the structure, the four walls attached to supports, and there was a surprising amount of scrap lumber on the floor of the garage. I put together the supports for the floor (yes, yes, I know that there's a technical term for them like joist or fleen or squootch or some such, but I don't care - it's a dog house, for crying out loud) and then had a horrible time getting the floor to fit exactly. Cutting the corners out to make room for the supports turned out to be the tricky bit, but in the end it went together just fine. I got the Pirate to attach the roof with hinges (for easy cleaning) and the entire thing went upstairs. With the addition of an old blanket (one that the little Goddess was loathe to give up), it became Esme's new palace.
Dagmar, on the other hand, is choosing to sleep rough rather than enjoy the comforts of the new digs. This tells me a couple of things: first, she's got a better-developed sense of refinement than her sister. Second, she's stockier and has more fur than Esme, so it's likely that she just finds the whole thing too hot for her taste. Esme tends to tremble with the cold as long as she's standing still (although when she's running, she radiates heat so effectively that picking her up and putting her down the front of your sweater becomes quite attractive, to those folks who don't mind a sweater full of smelly panting dog) so she has firmly established her presence in the new place.
The architecture reflects my own style - the fusion of lots of enthusiasm and precious little skill. The Pirate pointed out that it makes a nice companion to the chicken coop, and keeps a sort of symmetry. I think that the rustic beauty of the unfinished plywood, the steampunk elegance of twice as many screws as were necessary and the lack of any right angles whatsoever perfectly reflects my own philosophy of life, namely "Wow! We have dogs! I guess we'd better build them a house now. Do we have any wood?" A lesser person might give in to the lure of PetsMart, the temptation of a Dogloo, but not I! I am a builder! A pioneer! A maker of my own destiny, creator of my own paradise!
Kinda cheap, too.
posted by Aoibheall | 9:00 AM
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