Dog Bed

I was leaving for a week-long writing retreat that Sunday, an annual January ritual with a handful of writer friends.  We drive ten hours to a beach cottage on North Carolina’s Outer Banks and hunker down for several consecutive days of writing and camaraderie, of family meals and chilly, early morning beach walks.  After dinner each night, we gather together in the living room with laptops and legal pads then, in turn, we each read our day’s work aloud and take notes on the group’s immediate feedback.  This may not be your idea of heaven, but for me, there’s just nothing like it.

The cottage, owned for thirty years by my friends Steve and Patti, is a cozy and decidedly kid and dog-friendly place and this year I’ve been invited to bring Willie along.

As always, I’d been looking forward to the trip, to days filled with quiet contemplation and writing, to the valuable critiques, the long walks, the shared meals, and those wonderful outdoor showers – yes, even in winter.  But I was concerned that, with a room and a bed to myself, I would be tempted to allow Willie onto the bed to sleep with me at night instead of securing him in his wire crate in the kitchen, as Richard and I have done at home every night since he arrived in our home at the end of November.

Willie and I both enjoy it when he snoozes in my lap.  The night before the trip, I turned on the TV and stretched out on the sofa with Willie lying on my chest.  His warmth filled me.  I stroked his soft fur and, like a canine yogi, he stretched out in full extension, his spine lengthened and legs stiff, then relaxed with a deep sigh and closed his eyes.  Just looking at Willie made me sleepy, made me feel my blood pressure dropping, made me feel as contented as a dog curled up with his littermate.

Richard and I decided before he even came home with us that Willie would not sleep in our bed.  In fact, he hasn’t yet even climbed the stairs, and the second floor of our house is Willie-free, with no dog hair or dander to aggravate our sensitive, allergic guests.

And yet, as I lay on the sofa covered in warm, sleeping dog I thought, Would it be so wrong, really, to let Willie join me on the bed in the beach cottage, to allow him to cuddle up to me in that alien, new environment?  I reached my hand up and ruffle his fur.  His eyes opened, then fluttered closed again in slumber.

You’re damn right it would be wrong, said the voice in my head, because we both know there would be no going back.