Bedroom Renovation

Quite a few months after Charly lost mobility to take the stairs on her own, she stopped wanting to come upstairs at bedtime to sleep.  She declined the Edivator (see last week's blog), and no longer needed to sleep on the floor in her dog bed beside me.  My heart hurt for the first while as our invisible string had to stretch.  Then, I realized that she was not only content, but actually happy with her new sleeping space.  

I look back and now see its innocent start and slow evolution.  As I returned to working in-person at the office, Charly started napping occasionally in my closet.  There was a warm water pipe that ran through it under the floorboards, and that’s where she would lay.  I’m sure it smelled like me with all my clothes and shoes and dirty laundry, and it was cozy and dark.  Perfect for a dog.

Then, she started remodelling.  I didn’t realize it at the time, but in hindsight that’s exactly what happened.  I would come home to her sleeping in the closet on top of boots and papers that she had pulled off the bottom shelves.  Sometimes, she would nest in dirty clothes obtained from the laundry basket she would tip over.  You may be asking yourself, “Why didn’t Carol just close the closet door, for heaven’s sake?!”  I did contemplate doing so, but history has taught us that Charly will scratch and scratch and scratch at any door she wishes to enter.  She will scrape that paint off like an electric sander.  Charly cannot be contained – she’s lived freely for her entire life roaming about the house like she owns it.  And that is how she slowly ended up with a very thick soft pile of blankets, her favourite fluffy one on top, in the corner of my closet.  She had built her own perfect bedroom…or rather, she had me do it.  And, then the voice of my dad reminds me, “She has you well-trained, dear.”  [Sigh].