Who Loves You Best

Early morning light creeps through the blinds a little at a time and I try not to shift position, knowing it will wake the sleeping animals and start a small riot.  Not having to rise and shine at 5am is a gift that doesn't come often enough and I'm not willing to let it go without a fight but despite my best efforts, the little dachshund senses wakefulness and begins to stir in his basket next to the bed.  I hear his tags jingle, then a very soft, almost tentative whine, and finally a gentle scratching on the side of the bed. 

Five more minutes, I whisper to him and he obediently curls back up in a dappled little ball, sighs, and goes back to sleep.  I feel the cats relax and the small brown dog shifts against the back of my neck.  In the shadows, I see the black dog raise her head, sniff the air delicately, and then lay back down - it would seem a bit of grace has been granted.  It's taken the better part of ten months to sort out sleeping arrangements for three dogs, four cats and one overrun human - all the cats, the small brown dog and I share the bed while the black dog, no longer young but still vigilant about guarding her household, alternates between the doorways of the bedroom and the living room.  Only the little dachshund is confined to a basket - in reality it's two queen size pillows in a soft sided mesh playpen that I set up beside the bed each night - months of experimentation and trial and error (and an extraordinary amount of patience on my part) have finally produced a minor but significant breakthrough in the housebreaking process, at least during the night.  Even so, with his breed typical stubbornness (to borrow a well worn phrase from AA), I fear this may be a journey and not a destination.

I'm asleep before the five minutes is up and it's another hour before the jingling, whining and scratching commence again.  By then it's almost full dawn, the point of no return, and reluctantly I throw off the covers and leave my warm bed to begin The 7 Animal Shuffle - dogs out, cats fed, dogs in, dogs fed, dogs out again - it's a complicated dance, well practiced and predictable, only marginally chaotic.  Within an hour we are all settled in for the weekend and all seems right in our tiny corner of the world.  When the chores are done, I discreetly (but not discreetly enough, it seems) take a towel from the bathroom and start to run water in the kitchen sink.  The little dachshund's radar goes off immediately and he takes off like a shot on those little, short legs, ducking under the furniture and finally finding shelter in a corner behind a table in the sunroom. When I pull him out, he goes limp in my arms and gives me the world's most sorrowful and beseeching look but  when I harden my heart and remind him that I'd seen a flea on his belly that very morning, he hangs his head and won't meet my eyes.

There's no shame in having a flea, I tell him encouragingly, You just can't keep him.

Being the exceptionally fine dog that he is, he submits to this grave indignity with grace and a quiet composure and after a brisk towel drying and a thorough brushing, he's content to lie damply by my side and fall asleep.  I stroke his fur and scratch his ears as he snoozes and wonder how I ever got along without him.  
I love all my animals equally, I tell myself, but he and I both know it's not true.