Handicapped Access

In an attempt to make our girl more self sufficient, Quinn and I made some ramps last night so that Bunny could start going outside like a normal dog.

Up until now, I have been carrying Bunny out to the front yard, which means a few things. Day to day it means that I am late for work because I have to actually WATCH her out in the front yard (after what happened to Mandy's dogs in their fenced in back yard you can't be too careful). It also means she has to wait the entire work day to go outside because Quinn won't take her out. Finally, and one of the reasons Quinn won't take her out, is because she wiggles, and one day we both came crashing to the ground which was not great for either one of us.

Making the ramp was great fun. Quinn used to be a lot like our mom and he is really embracing it over the last few days. Because he obviously knows the best way to do everything, and kept telling me that my design was stupid and wrong, I ended up making one ramp and he ended up taking the next ramp away from me and making me hold things while he barked orders and finished it. Hello mama. In the end, my ramp looked better, but I will give credit because Quinn helped finish off my ends with nails because my double layer of carpet was too thick for staples. What I learned during the ramp making process is that I should not ask Quinn for help on projects because it does nothing for our bonding... just disrupts the peace that is becoming more of our norm. At the peak of ramp making I think I regressed to about 13 years old and blurted out "Don't tell me what to do!! This is why I moved to Houston!!" Wow.

This is a lot of blog devoted to the handicapped ramp, but we don't get much excitement out here. We were out at midnight last night trying to get Bunny to use her ramp, which she would not go near. Knowing who in our household is always up for adventure, Quinn told me to go get Cosmo. He called Cosmo, who ran down the hall... flew down the ramp... got a big doggy smile and flew back up the ramp... and... well yeah... rinse, repeat. Bunny watched this whole action, and then we put her on the ramp. Her first thought was to jump off the edge. However, knowing Bunny's suicidal tendencies, we were standing by to catch her. Then we sent Cosmo down for another run. Then tried Bunny again. I must say, this is the dog who ran full speed into the patio door a couple years ago after we cleaned the glass. We love her, but she's not the brightest girl.

You can see the end result picures below. The first pic shows Bunny sniffing her ramp, trying to decide if she should go down it. In the end, she has settled on going down about 3 quarters of the way and the gingerly hopping onto the ground. On her way up, she goes to the same spot she departed from and gingerly hops back up. I wonder when it is going to click that if she uses the bottom she has instant ground access. The next 2 pictures show Cosmo, in a blur, still flying down the cool new Corgi ramp in glee this morning. You can see Lily bypasses it entirely and jumps off to the side, but Cosmo just enjoys the ramp. I think I am going to buy him a slip n' slide for Christmas. I bet he'd dig it.