Teardown?

Okay, just because I spent $240 yesterday on a new carbon paddle — two thirds the price I paid for the whole kayak a few years ago! — doesn’t mean I’m stupid.  You won’t catch me shelling out $20,000 for a Rockstar Puppy custom doghouse equipped with heat and air-conditioning that can be controlled with an iPad, and music that comes on when the dog walks in.  (Sorry to say, I’m not making this up:  See last week’s NY Times article “Luxury Doghouses and the Dogs That Couldn’t Care Less”.)

I actually did go out and buy Ricky a doghouse when he was a little puppy; I’m not gonna lie to you.  I remember liking the idea of a doghouse. ( The image in my head:  Nana, the St. Bernard in Peter Pan, my favorite story ever, gets banished from the nursery, and is sent to her doghouse.  It always made me feel good to know she had somewhere safe and cozy to go.)  I remember picturing a scenario where Ricky’s outside in his fenced-in run (turns out, he almost never is) and I go

for a jog, so there’s nobody watching him (turns out, this almost never happens), and there’s a sudden downpour.  Where would Ricky go for shelter?

The answer, I learned after purchasing and installing, is not the doghouse.  He never got the hang of that little flap door.  (More likely, never wanted to.)  If he happens to be outside and feels like coming in, all he has to do is scratch at the porch slider and whine a little, and Carol or Luz or Robby or Matt or Greg will let him in within 6-8 seconds.

And staying in the doghouse overnight?  Yeah, right.  Outside? With night noises? And bugs? When it’s hot? Or cold? Why would he ever do that when he knows I’ll gladly carry him up to his cozy doggy bed on the nice easy chair in our bedroom?

I was relieved to find out Ricky isn’t the only dog who eschewed his doghouse.  My Teaneck HS classmate

Barbara (you’ll be hearing a lot of mentions of my THS gang now that we had our xxth reunion last month in Weehawken and discovered that we all still exist and can communicate via Facebook, etc.; see “Bulldogs Are Cool. Beagles Are Sweet,” near bottom) sent me this old photo of her nephew Matt and his beagle, Emma (right).  Matt was trying to teach Emma to use the doghouse, but the teaching never took.  (Does it ever, with beagles??)

Come to think of it, Ricky probably couldn’t stay in his doghouse now even if he wanted to.  I haven’t lifted the roof (that was one of the cool features; an open-able roof) in so long that I hate to think what might be living in there now:  Mice?  Raccoons?  Snakes?  Ghosts?  Vampires?  Ricky’s probably better off where he is.  And he knows it.

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