Iron bars a cage

I assembled the dog's new crate this morning. Last night I hauled the rather heavy box down from my car into my house.

"Step One," I said. "Get it in the house."

Then I sat on the couch.

"Step Two," I said. "Take a nap."

I slept until the wee hours, then was awake for a few hours, during which I did not assemble the crate, then slept again for some hours until slightly later than I had intended to get up.

But after walking the dog, I finally cut open the box and pulled out the crate, hoping it would not be as complicated for me as the wooden crate had been. And it wasn't. Basically, it was packaged collapsed, and you just had to unfold it and hook the pieces in a couple places.

I had bought a soft pad for the bottom. It is made for this crate but sold separately, and I put it in.



Yesterday I had put in on the couch and put some of my dog's favorite blankets on top, hoping to make it smell familiar and good to him. When I put it in the crate, he was immediately intrigued and did go halfway in to sniff, but then he backed out again. So I got his little bed out of the broken wooden crate, brushed off the wood chips, and tossed it in. Then he went all the way in.



When I leave the house in a little while, I'll put him in and shut the door. I hope it withstands whatever he does in my absence. If only he was calmer about it all.

In Richard Lovelace's poem, To Althea, from Prison, it says:

Stone walls do not a prison make
Nor iron bars a cage
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage;
If I have freedom in my love
And in my soul am free
Angels alone, that soar above
Enjoy such liberty.

If only my dog could read poetry.