esrosedotblog

BED TO WORSE

We got new pad/bolsters for Franklin's crate today.

Understand, the crate is a good thing. He goes in to rest and to 'get away from it all'. It is a den. We do not bother him when he goes in there and he uses that as a way to keep us at arms' length when we get too annoying.

So, you can understand that a change like a bed pad could be a big thing especially for a dog that is change-averse anyway.

The box came and we opened it together. He got to help unwrap the bed from the plastic. He drug it to the crate as I suggested.

When I took out his old dusty bed and put the clean new one in the crate he tried to pull it out.

Granted, this could just be the confusion over its being a toy to play with and a bed. But, probably not.

He has not been in the crate all day. Nor on the other new pad which we put in the living room as a 'cot'; near the fire, near us when we are reading, near us when we are in the dining room and he doesn't want to be too close. (Airedales are like that).

A little while ago, he started his patented groaning over near the crate. I went to look. He went in and started scratching or pawing the pad as he does when he wants to make a nest. Unlike his big bed in our room, this doesn't move much. It is a pad.

Then he bitched around some more. Then he went in and bit the bolster part and kept it in his mouth.

We were unmoved. This is an acceptance phase that we must go through. It is like grieving. It has seven stages or something; anger, denial, bargaining, grief, then whatever.

Now he is lying in the crate, on the pad, his head on the bolster, dead to the world.

Finally, acceptance.