Crates

I am a firm believer in the value of crate training a dog. I own both the wire crates, and the plastic ones. I've seen in magazines the ones that look like real furniture. Wow! They are gorgeous. If I had a talented carpenter in the family I'd ask them to build us one.

Of course, since I live by the piling system, crates do serve more than one purpose. They have been a place for me to stack laundry, lay my delicate "do not dry" items out to, you know, dry. Crates make a coffee table of sorts also.

We took ours a step further and made a little bar out of it when we had the big 50th birthday celebration for Reno in November. We needed a place to put all the wine glasses and a couple bottles of scotch. So a cookie sheet became our "shelf" so to speak on the crate, and within easy reach. But after the party, those items just kinda stayed on Sidney's crate. Really, as a foster dog he has it all, a dry bar complete with two bottles of really good single malt scotch.

I don't know what got into Sidney during the night last night. But about 4:30am I heard a commotion. Even in my sleep I can identify crate noises so part of me knew it was not an intruder or anything. Perhaps he was high jumping, or trying to chase a bunny, or was exorcising a demon of some kind. But he make enough motion to tip over a bottle of scotch and take down a glass off the serving tray. Maybe he was just tired of smelling the Scotch and was hell bent to have a sip. Really, I was going to get up and investigate, but at that point silence prevailed (Sid was probably afraid to move at that point) and I drifted back to sleep.

So I have to say the party must really be over. The little scotch bar on the crate was disassembled this morning. Sid's valiant effort to taste the yummy failed to come to fruition. And his crate is just his crate once again. Until, of course, it is reinvented.