A Dog's Life

I've started a new little project.  Little Oak (Rav link) by Alana Dakos of Never Not Knitting.  I'm making it in a hand dyed chocolately brown color that looks amazing in person, but is really hard to photograph.  I tried to get a good picture on the coffee table.

But the picture didn't show off the subtle variations of chocolate brown that really give the yarn some depth.  (And really, make it the reason for knitting with a brown yarn.  I can't think of any reason I would want to knit with plain, solid brown.  Especially on something where stitches must be picked up.  My eyes, while not poor, are not up to that particular challenge.)

So I moved to a table near a window with more sunlight.

Much better picture.  At least here you can see the depth of color.  But, as is wont to happen 'round these parts, a dog got a whiff of something new on the table.

So Fred popped up to investigate the yarn.  This is a really bad picture of Fred, because he is all white and the sunlight was directly on him.  But really, what he wanted wasn't the yarn.

Fred was really trying to get to the window.  Things outside must be investigated at regular intervals.  And of course, when one tires of looking out the window, the seat becomes a bed.

Yup, the dogs have a window seat.  The dogs were constantly on the end table to look out the window, so rather than try to change the dogs' behavior, I developed an alternate solution.  Take two little side tables, cover them with blankets--enough that the dog using the seat can still see out when said dog is lying down--and voila! no more dogs on the end table!  Or rather, one dog on the window seat and one dog on the end table, looking over the head of the dog on the window seat.

I think it is noteworthy, too, that in order to take this picture I had to scoot back into the corner of the room--and onto a dog bed on the floor.  These dogs are not in need of places to sleep.  There is a dog bed in every room, including the kitchen.  When Mike asked why we needed so many dog beds, I asked him if he had a place to sit in every room.  It seemed very logical to me.

This is to say that out house is extremely dog friendly.  We have baskets of dog toys, and hooks for dog things, half a closet devoted to dog stuff, and the dogs pretty much are allowed anywhere we go.  They can be trying, and they bark at things and sometimes have accidents when we are gone too long, but it sure is nice to come home to all that fluffy love.

And in a related story, I've finished my Baktus.

Details and better pictures to come.