Even a Dog Likes To Be Comfortable

Our dog Ellie resting on our Ikea Kivik loveseat with her head on a pillow and covered in a blanket in August 2012

I don’t normally pose my pet pictures but I must confess to draping the blanket across Ellie for this shot. I would have preferred that she be asleep but it was a hot day so I only left the blanket on for a few seconds. The pillow, though, she sought that out on her own.

Room to Snuggle

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Heretofore the only real place to sit in my office has been the Throne of Kings, the recliner we bought when we moved here a decade ago to replace my beloved window seat from the previous house. It’s a Scandinavian style recliner, incredibly comfortable, yet small and lightweight and easy to move about, perfect for my small office. But it has a fatal flaw — there’s no room for a sixty-five pound lap dog.

I’ve been trying to figure out how to re-arrange my office to be able to both have something large enough for Ellie to curl up beside me, yet where I could still recline so that Scout and/or Sam and occasionally Emma could curl up on me as well. A visit to Ikea this weekend appears to have solved the problem. This Kivik loveseat is big enough for Ellie & me, while the footstool on the left is big enough that I can recline on it and the cats can sleep on me as before.

So how come it is Scout curled up on it in this picture (and Sam & Emma are sleeping there now), and not Ellie? Well, she somehow hurt her rear leg and is limping a bit, so she’s confined to bed rest in the basement for now. Not that she’s at all happy about it.

Soon, Ellie, soon.

Fully Recovered

Our dog Ellie lies down with an Elizabethan collar on her head on September 21, 2009. Original: _MG_6418.cr2

After a week of house rest Ellie was feeling better and definitely ready for the cone to come off. While Ellie wanted to jump right back to her normal routine, we followed the vet’s advice and slowly ramped her up to her normal activity levels. This meant her toy hedgehogs had to be hidden for a few days after the cone came off to reduce the temptation for too much running and jumping, two staples of hedgehog play.

Soon enough she was fully recovered and the house was once more filled with the joyful squeaking of hedgehogs at play. Squeaking, and squeaking, and squeaking …

So Little

Our cat Sam sleeping on the couch next to some blankets

A picture of Sam zonked out on our couch, taken back in early January when he was just a little kitten and had only been with us a couple of weeks. I wanted to emphasize how little he was so I zoomed out and took a wide angle shot.