Nothing bad.  I was surprised by this scene when got out of bed.

Sparky is a good dog with agency.1  He can sleep where ever he wants.  Sparky has a crate in my bedroom that he goes to when I go to bed.  He is often somewhere else in the morning.  Today, he was in his crate next to Rusty.

Sparky’s sleeping crate is in a dim corner between my bed and the wall.  It was moved there during a Spring thunderstorm so he wouldn’t see the lightning flashes.  My bed is elevated, so it’s not weird.

I don’t know why Sparky stays up until I go to bed, but he does.  I go in around midnight, but Sparky is blown out by 10 pm.  He does that creepy, eyes slightly open, 80% asleep, dog nap thing in the living room,  until I shut off the lights, then he goes in with me.

I don’t know what Sparky does all night.  If I’m not asleep, I can hear his clickety nails on the hardwood floor as he walks around.  Night watch, or he’s checking to see that he turned off the stove, whatever. It’s none of my business.  If he’s not in his sleeping crate in the morning, he’s probably sleeping on his bed in the living room.  In the winter, like now, he might be on his bed in front of the wood stove.  Not often, he will be sleeping on my laundry in the closet.  That is adorable.

I don’t recall him ever spending the night in his crate in the solarium.

Rusty is still unreliable, so he sleeps in his locked crate.  The solarium is left open so Sparky can go in to look out the patio door or sleep by the wood stove.  I hoped that he might go in to check on Rusty.

Like a new dog will, Rusty gets agitated if everybody leaves him.  He settles down quickly, but if his crate is covered with a bed sheet, he remains calm.  Last night, I left his crate uncovered because he was sleeping when Sparky and I went to bed.  I wanted to see how he did.

I never heard Rusty grumbling, but Sparky apparently slept in his crate to show solidarity.  It’s nice. 

Since I started looking for a second dog, I’ve wondered where they would sleep.  Having two dogs sleep in my bedroom seems abnormal, like having a dog sleep in your bed.  

Now that I’ve got Rusty, it seems more absurd.  

Sparky is a comfort animal.  Not a service dog, because he doesn’t have the training or temperament to do anything helpful, but he’s very nice to have around.  Sparky is great at looking soulful, rakish or vulnerable, when that’s what you need.  He gives a contented sigh, just before you think of doing that yourself.

Rusty is a cross between a dog and a kangaroo.  Not malevolent, just energetic, chaotic and fun to watch.  I don’t want Rusty sleeping in my bedroom.  My bed is a meter high.  If Rusty gets in my bedroom, he will find a way to get up on the bed, eviscerate my pillow, lick everything, get comfortable, and be a little insulted that I insist that he get off. 

I’m going to use this opportunity to transition Sparky to sleeping in the solarium.  That may sound strange since I can force Sparky to spend the night anywhere I choose, but respecting his autonomy is important to both of us.

Pinch me, I’m dreaming.  I took a break from writing this to take the dogs out for their morning toilet.  Rusty did a wonderful thing.

Sparky knows to piss every time we go out, and take a dump if he can.  That way, if a situation occurs inside, it’s probably my fault.  Rusty thinks we go outside to so he can smell which pile came from which dog.      

This morning, Sparky took a dump, and Rusty decided that he should too.  

No, you don’t understand.  Rusty has not pooped in the house, but his poop schedule is so irregular, it seemed inevitable.  Until now, Rusty has shown no sign of learning from Sparky.  The point of getting a second dog now, was so that Sparky could train the new guy.  That doesn’t work if the new guy is some fresh graduate from a tony private school who thinks she knows everything, and has nothing to learn from an old dog who has been doing this job since before she was born. 

Point is, I’m having a good morning. 

1  Rather than say that Sparky had agency, I was going to say that he was emancipated.  To verify that emancipated was the right word, I typed it into Google, and Google AI suggested, “What does emancipated mean for a dog”.  Nobody asks Google that question.  So the AI switched to a word, emaciated, that it could answer.  That is just odd, and not at all helpful.