Small dogs hangout in different spaces than big dogs, many of you know this, but I am learning it. I look around and find Gus holed up or napping in surprising spaces – the narrow space between two crates, beneath the living room sofa, and lately, snug in the middle of the rows of shoes we keep near the front door for when we go out in the muck and mud of a farm.

I think he feels safe in there, Fate and  Red don’t go in there, and it looks as if Gus is making the shoes into a kind of fort. Gus can climb up the stairs to our bedroom, but he’s afraid to climb down,so sometimes we find him up there snug and safe under the bed. Gus is not much bigger than a rabbit, and smaller than many of them.

He has about a half dozen hangouts around the downstairs where he has made himself at home.