Lenore’s couch is a story of people and dogs, of love and comfort, of furniture and the wondrous interplay people and the animals they love. My dogs are not permitted on the sofa, and don’t go there. The one exception occurred in the other Bedlam Farm, two years ago. We had an old couch we didn’t sit on, we were going to throw it away. One night I was sitting reading on the sofa, and I fell asleep. When I woke up, Lenore was sitting  next to me with her head on my lap. You know how it it. It was the cutest, sweetest thing, and Lenore just melts my heart, I love her to death and so I said okay, just this one time.

That was it, of course. I had a reading chair and Maria didn’t use the sofa, so Lenore ended up taking it over. We called it Lenore’s Couch, and that’s what it became. When we moved to the new farm, we were going to throw it away, but I told Maria, I have some space in my office. Let’s let Lenore keep her couch. So we did, and she loves it, no other living thing ever goes on it. Red is always by my feet, Frieda on her dog beds. Every now and then, I turn away from my computer and I smile seeing Lenore on her couch. This is why dogs get to sleep inside our houses and raccoons do not. Dogs know how to work us.