Rasta-dog

Lily has always been confined to the kitchen since she was a puppy. Usually she's okay with it, but sometimes she stands at the gate and whines to be where the people are. Kinda like that song in The Little Mermaid. Since we're pretty sick of climbing over the gate whenever we enter the kitchen, our plan was to buy a house with a fenced backyard and relocate her permanently outside when we moved to our new house. Yeah, like we're ever getting a new house.

Then plans changed when we moved into Mom and Dad's house for part of the week. During August through most of October, Lily lived out on the fenced-in patio. Izzy, Mom's Pomeranian, came out to play with Lily sometimes during the day but then went inside at night. Lily was lonely, but since she's so big (not to mention a wee bit smelly) she needed to stay outside. Of course, we didn't know that Mom was sneaking Lily inside the house during the day when no one was home.

Because, even though Lily is huge and my parents have never really liked big dogs, they've developed a soft spot for my big, sweet puppy. Mom, who thinks dogs are just people with fur, decided that Lily would be an indoor dog the first time temperatures dropped below 40 degrees. Lily LOVES being a couch dog now. She sprawls out, full-length, on the couch and snores like crazy.

Naturally when we came home this weekend I had to let her come upstairs with us. Dan's still not wild about the idea, but Lily is loving it. Take a look at some of the pictures Eleven took of her last night when she was maxin' and relaxin' with her peeps...