Shots from The Battery

We bought a couple of nice desks and chairs for an unused area of our living room last Tuesday night. After we finally got it all here and in place, we decided to rearrange the room a bit to even out the distribution of furniture in the area in which we spend most of our waking time.

This is where we met a challenge that we did not expect or initially understand.

George, our tiny chihuahua, went on strike because we moved her house across the room to the opposite wall. I thought she’d like having her house between the desks next to us - but I had no idea how wrong I was.

She’s proud of her digs and it’s generally where she spends most of her time. It’s more of a doggy condo, actually, complete with stairs and a second level for her toys and chewies. She pranced so happily when we brought it home last year as she explored every nook and cranny.

Anyhow, by strike, I mean exactly that. Her normally perky ears drooped and her tail curled under her legs. She wouldn’t come when called and staged a lengthy protest to mommy by kicking her back feet next to her chair for an hour. It was late, so we figured we’d go to bed and she’d be fine on Wednesday morning. We were wrong.

She continued to pout and protest through Friday, refusing to go near it or even retrieve her toys from upstairs. Saturday I found her curled up in a corner of the couch looking so pitiful that I had to finally find some way to appease her. She was crying. Literally crying. So we sat down and talked about it. She seemed to understand the large shelf that stood in the footprint of her former location was not going to move, but her ears perked up a bit when I pointed at the bottom shelf and asked her if she wanted me to move her bed there. I sensed she understood and approved, and decided the compromise was worth it. So I got up, pulled it from inside her house, and put it on the shelf with little George jumping and licking my ankles and calves all the way across the room. She was in the bed before I was able to stand up straight.

Guess it was the view she missed.

She immediately went across the room, climbed upstairs on her house and got a golf ball, which she brought over and deposited at my feet. A golf ball for a shelf… a fair bargain for a happy puppy.

Anyhow, George has completely returned to her normal tail-waggin’, toy playing, tongue-waving self, and she’s been passed out from a busy morning of play as I typed this.