Hurricane Ed

Since doggie visits here are supposed to be like a combo of summer camp, visiting your favorite grandma and a Grateful Dead concert, guests at the Lodge enjoy quite a bit of leeway in behavioral guidelines. We expect our male (and sometimes female) guests to mark, so carpeting has been removed and Lysol purchased by the gallon. While they’re not allowed on the bed or sofa back home, the guilty pleasures of lounging on the coffee table and crawling under an electric blanket on the Cal King are to be savored here.

   Eddie would go.


Our darling Ed knows this and makes the most of it. An older Dachsund, Ed’s a one-dog destruction derby. His mom leaves his bed, which is held together with numerous strips of duct tape. The reason why becomes apparent as soon as she walks out the door. Ed tears into the bed, clouding the room with giant puffs of stuffing.

  Mr. Bill: prepare to die.


The fun has just begun. The toy box apparently demands to have each of its 50 or 60 toys removed, one at a time, and tested for durability. Eventually, the place looks like one of the more choice scenes from “Hoarders.”

  Anybody seen Keith Moon lately?

It takes two to play this game so, with a sigh, Nickie or I go over and start tossing the toys back in their box. Ed loves this part–quick as each one goes in, he grabs it and pulls it back out again for another round of abuse. This can go on for hours but, we aim to please.