The Great Down Comforter Incident
I was on the phone with my friend C yesterday morning discussing her Puppy M. Specifically, we were talking about when Puppy M will be ready to be left home alone outside of her crate. It brought back some memories.
Let’s set a scene, say February in Chicago circa 2006: A light, dry snow falls outside and John and I are preparing to walk up to Gamekeepers for 10 cent wings. It was a Thursday dinner tradition among some of our friends and neighbors where the joke was that we couldn’t afford not to eat there. Before we started layering on scarves and stuffing our feet into boots, I told Lou Lou to go ‘Night-Night’, which is her command to get in her crate.
This is where I’d like to point out that this dog LOOOOOVES her crate and always has. Once she figured out that her dog cave was a private, quiet, no demand zone, she took to hanging out in it whenever she wanted to` have a moment to herself. We’re not talking about a dog who shrieked and banged on the crate door to be let out. We’re talking about a dog who would go into her crate, spin around three times, lie down in a curl of fur and sigh deeply before closing her eyes. Her crating behavior always makes me wish for an Amy crate that I could escape to and not be bothered, preferably accompanied by a glass of red wine.
As soon as the words ‘Night-Night’ popped out of my mouth, John (ever the expert dog trainer that he isn’t) piped up. It went a little something like this:
John: Babe, let’s just leave her out of her crate, she’s old enough.
Amy: Hon, she’s just over a year old. She’s not ready to be unsupervised like that.
John: It’s cruel to leave her in there for so long.
Amy: It’s not cruel; it’s what dogs want. She’s just going to sleep while we’re gone. She was at daycare today. She won’t even know she’s in there. Besides, she likes her crate.
John: I don’t like her being in there, so then if all she’s going to do is sleep, then she’ll just sleep on the sofa or on her bed by the door.
I resisted, making the case that we were still puppy-proofing the house and keeping closet doors shut at all times. Even though that period in time was the most organized my house has ever been, she had rightly earned the title of “The Eviscerator” with her ability to speed gut level 10 Tuffy’s Toys. She had shredded a toy tire (made from recycled tires-hard!) in the span of a commercial break. I was buying deer antlers every time petexpertise.com had the right size in stock. In other words, she was a dedicated chewer.
Our discussion was turning into an argument, so despite the fact that I had visions of her munching on the baseboards and the coffee table being reduced to kindling, I caved. She had been doing so well at school, plus she had been to daycare that day. She would sleep the entire time we were gone, right? Right?!
Fast forward as few hours. After some 10 cent wings and a chardonnay that I would describe as having notes of jet fuel and acetone, I decided to head home while the men-folk watched sports. As I walked back down the street, I thought it great night for a quick walk around the neighborhood. The snow glowed pale yellow under the street lights and I loved the pleasantly hissy sound of snow falling around me. I envisioned Lou Lou and I padding through the snow, up past St. Michael’s, over to Wells and then back home. A peaceful time for just the two of us. Ahhh.
I visualized Lou Lou curled up on her binky by the door, which was fashioned from a fleece crate pad on top of a folded old queen-sized down comforter. Please focus on the words queen-sized down comforter. Here is a photo of said comforter when it was enjoying its butter-yellow life.
Looks like a lot of down is in that comforter, eh?
When I opened the door, my first thought was, “O shit, O shit, O shitshitshit someone done pulled a Spider-man! Scaled up to our 4th floor deck, broke in the sliding glass doors and the snow is coming inside!” Clearly the chardonnay was talking because it took a second for me to realize that it wasn’t snow, but an entire queen-sized bed’s worth of down floating through the air, kept aloft by our ceiling fan and a dog who was giving herself whiplash by snapping a mouthful of comforter back and forth. I was stunned. I called for her and she trots out of a swirl of down, grinning. If life were a cartoon, her thought bubble would read, “Mom, it was so fun, the more I ripped with my teeth, the more fluffies came out. Don’t you like fluffies? Have fun with me! You can try and catch the fluffies in your mouth!”
I hustled her out the door and into the elevator to take her to potty. I tried to project that nothing was wrong. Since I hadn’t caught her in the act, it wasn’t a “teachable moment” and it was our fault for putting her in a situation that provided an irresistible chewing opportunity. Dog-parenting FAIL.
Back upstairs, I grabbed the vacuum and attached the hose. I figured the hose would allow me to suck up the down that was still careening through the air. I figured wrong. Down is funny, it moves on the slightest breath of air, which makes it rather difficult to vacuum. Add to the fact that I was flailing around with the body of the vacuum in one hand and stabbing at the air with the hose in my other hand while Lou Lou was jumping about trying to grab down in her mouth and we had a down derecho of sorts. The more I tried to vacuum up the down, the more it swirled around, which made Lou Lou bounce around more, which made the down swirl around again and lather, rinse, repeat. That’s when John walked in. For a man who talks for a living; he was speechless. He grabbed the dustpan and whiskbroom and tried to help. For a fraction of a second, I wanted nothing more than to transform the vacuum hose into a laser death ray and turn it on my spouse, vaporizing him. He knew that this was one of those I told you so, your silence is very much appreciated-type moments in a marriage and kept his mouth shut. I think he finally apologized in 2009, but I can’t recall for sure.
What seemed like hours later, we had most of the down collected, though I would find down in the oddest places for the next few years. The comforter, or what was left of it, looked like Edward Scissorhands had tried to fold it. I was peeved at both man and dog. Man was sheepish, dog was clueless.
That Saturday at class, we relayed the story to her trainer. After she finally quit laughing, she told us that all dogs are different, but based on a number of factors including Lou Lou’s energy level and drive to work, we were very much in the teenage years. It wasn’t until she was over 2 that she gained full house privileges, and the Baby Gate Saga that led to that purchase is a story for another day.