Sammy and Elston slept over last night(those are meag and mikes dogs. Sammy is a great dane/shepard mix and a total brat who has a photo shoot in Real Simple Magazine and Elston is a pit bull pointer mix who is really nervous but beautiful and truly a sweet heart). 

Jay and I live in the barn. Its heated and very cozy. Its detached from the house so when Sammy and Elston get up to run and play in the back yard, they usually come to the barn door to invite our creepy dogs out as well. Otis, being the sneaky escape artist he is, decided to let himself out and leave the door open (he must have been raised in a barn...booo).

Enter Sammy. He ran over to Jay and pressed his cold wet nose on Jay's sleeping cheeks. 

When Jay told me about his rude awakening, i started to contemplate the situation of our dogs these days.

In Jersey City (where it all began) the dogs lived in a small apartment. They didnt have visiting cousin dogs or the freedom to open doors and dart outside unpunished. They had to walk for 3 blocks until reaching an unkept patch of grass suitable for peeing (this applies only to Buka, as Otis is willing to poo and pee an anything). 

Off the leash time was exclusively for indoor scenarios or the crappy concrete dog run in Hamilton Park, and they only got the chance to sprint and chase and be dogs if we hiked them far away from cars and other people and other dogs...which could only be on weekends when the weather was nice.

So when our apartment became infested with roaches, i had hoped that Buka and Otis- being team players- would bark or stomp on or frighten the unwanted insects. I stopped eating in the house, vacuumed and scrubbed all the time, threw out everything i could, but the bugs just got worse. Despite the presence of two huge dogs and constant lights, the roaches were fearless. They marched on, and out of the exposed brick- into cabinets, the fridge, and my hairdryer. The dogs pretended that they didn't even notice. Buka started knocking her food all over the floor as if to attract her roach comrades. Damn you, Benedict Buka. 

It was only after considering the then and the now for our dogs, that i realized a pact must have been made. Buka and Otis arranged a deal with the head roach and granted them safe passage and probably even food if they terrorized us into fleeing. They told them our weaknesses, plotted against us in our time of need. We were duped. Out smarted by two seemingly dumb dogs who now live in the lap of canine luxury. They are never without a human to nap upon, a yard to run in, grass to chew, toys to shred, sticks to rearrange, and dog friends.