Decisions, Decisions

Nephdog is starting is visit tonight. I had the sleeping arrangements all planed out weeks in advance… but then. But then the summer reared its ugly head and suddenly, I started to have doubts about my plan.

Dogs have fur. Nephdog has very short fur, but fur he has and that makes me concerned about the heat in the room he will be sharing with Dogger – who also has fur. I don’t haven’t worried about Dogger because I have the A/C and the ceiling fan and a floor fan on in that room and the shades down and the curtains drawn – but it still gets warm. The computer also lives in there and adds to the room temperature even when it’s off. Nephdog will not be in a crate so I can’t leave the door open. Kitty would not like the idea of Nephdog wandering around his house all night, Kitty holds the House Wandering Around concession and I don’t think he’s looking to take on any new help or would be welcoming in any way the idea of assistance. – But, but Nephdog probably could and most likely would be fine or Nephdog could decided in the middle of the night that Kitty is a dog toy. I think Dogger would notice that Nephdog gets to wander the house all night while she clearly does not because she can not be trusted. I think it would lead to dissent in the ranks, most likely while I would be trying to sleep and I don’t want that.

There is also the “move the cats box” option which would allow for the dog room door to be open while still reining in the dogs by keeping the hallway door closed and still allowing the Kitty to wander most of the house and still have access to his box but that would mess with the function of the A/C and cause those of us on the wrong ( i.e., the side of the door I would be on) side of the door to die from the heat. Which I also do not want.

Then there is the “put the dogs upstairs” option. This would be the best option if I had started to dog proof the upstairs last weekend. Which I did not. I could turn the window unit A/C on and they would be okay. Nephdog has spent many happy hours up there in years past and seemed to survive it just fine. Dogger has never had any unsupervised time up there and I think she would find reasons to make sure that she never again spend any unsupervised time up there again. Which this option, Kitty is not damaged emotionally, used as a dog toy or forced to go into a living room time share situation. The A/C is not confused and will continue to more or less air conditioning the house and we all probably sleep through the night.
But.

But. Nephdog is coming tonight and I would have to do a lot of dog centric dog proofing between the time I get home and the time Nephdog gets dropped off and then bathed. It is also much more convenient to have the dogs in the office room, so much less running up and down the stairs and its so much easier in the mornings if they can be downstairs and taken out/fed/taken out and still allow me to read the paper…( I am not lazy, those stairs are steep!)This set up worked very well when Nephdog was here earlier in the spring, I had it all worked out and it was fine but that was before it got hot, before the A/C was on, before I had a chance to completely over think this whole thing.