The Puppy Plan

Vince and I have already been talking about staying more in the basement because it’s much easier to keep the downstairs at a comfortable temp than it is to keep the upstairs comfortable. I shouldn’t say “easier” because all it takes is changing the temp on the thermostat but with energy costs going up, it’s less costly to keep the downstairs comfortable.

I have this fence upstairs that I kept at the opening between the breakfast room and the living room. I have one that’s about half that size that I kept at the top of the stairs to keep Rita from falling down. Those were all when she had the run of the house but that didn’t last long. The family room had new carpet when we moved in and the rest of the upstairs is wood floors.

We had already decided that, since we were going to spend most of our time downstairs, Rita would stay downstairs. It’s easier for us to go out with her from downstairs because the only way out from the main level is to go down several steps.

This is the area downstairs where Rita’s little fenced in area is located. See the two doors to the left? Those are storage rooms. One is about 12′ x 12′ and one is pretty much the closet that goes under the stairs. I’m thinking we’ll leave the puppy’s crate in that larger room and keep the door open so he’ll be kinda close to Rita and that’s where he will sleep and stay when we aren’t home.

Until he is 100% trustworthy, he’s not going to be on new carpet or newly refinished hardwood floors so that rules out the upstairs.

When you come down the stairs into the basement, there’s a tiled “path” that’s about 4′ wide and probably 22′ long, plus the area around Rita’s fence. He’ll have plenty of room to romp and play and we’ll go outside and play with him when the weather is better. I think the downstairs family room got new carpet the same time the upstairs family room did so . . that’s off limits for a while too but we can hold him or sit in the floor and play with him on the carpet.

So, the plan is . . there are a stack of boxes by the wall. I’ll push the sofa up to those boxes, and I think that will make the distance that’s open from the tile to the carpet short enough that the brown fence I showed above will work to keep him off the carpet.

Right now, there’s a rather large mirror that we took down from upstairs and it’s standing up against the back of the sofa. I have one more large frame that I can put against the back of the sofa so he can’t chew on the sofa skirt and also those will keep him from going under the sofa. One frame will be against the boxes and one frame will have the brown fence going behind it so . . if all works out like I think it will, he cannot get onto the carpet.

I’m sure our plans will require some tweaking but we are so excited to get him . . whatever it takes, we’ll make it work.