Welcome to Jurassic Bark

Franklin, TN~ For some time now, I have been dealing with my mutt situation. You see, I am staying in a house with no yard. Of course, there is grass and trees and all of the elements we most often associate with "yard" but I am missing one very important element:

A FENCE.

And, without a fence, I make the bold statement that I then in fact have no yard. For a time this was remedied with some kennel panels from Home Depot. At first the kennel was a horrid six by six feet in size. After placing the doghouse in there, my two dogs found it almost impossible to spend the night inside it. The countered in protest by giving me very sharp glances and always crapping upwind from wherever I might be standing.

I saved my money and several weeks later upgraded to twelve by six.

Then I utilized the side of the house and upgraded to an obtuse, octagon-rhombus thingy that was bigger.

But Sunday I created what just might be my finest creation yet. I call it...

JURASSIC BARK.

I do not own a digital camera yet (after Christmas) so use your imagination on this. The back part of the grassy area behind my house is fenced off on two sides and closed on the other by a garage. The quasi enclosed area is surrounded by some overgrown brush and some very tall trees. At first a balked at using that area for the Mongrels because I thought the fence had holes in it and it just seemed much too overgrown. BUT a little work and a little elbow grease had it looking spiffy. My roommate and I relocated the Rat Packs insulated doghouse (that I built three weeks ago) and placed it in the back corner behind the garage and out of sight from the house. I placed the old plastic dog house on top of that and made it a two story condominium. (The pup can jump on top of the new house...old dog can't.)

I spread the kennel panels across the gap from the garage to the neighbor's fence. With them stretched in such a manner, it makes it look as though I have some sort of frothing man-eating carnivore contained behind the fence. One of my neighbors commented that it looks like I have Kujo corraled in the back. What makes it even funnier is that the Mutts sleep in the back out of sight. When people walk by they can't see anything but they see the gate securely fashioned. After peering for several seconds I'm sure it provokes them to ponder:

What in the hell is caged back there?!?!

After studying my six foot tall panels, and the forested nature of the wildlife reserve that has sprung up behind my house, I have dubbed the area Jurassic Bark. The chuckle comes when my old dog stumbles from the shadows half asleep and my puppy emerges from the darkness with a stuffed duck in his mouth...wagging his tail.

Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrroooooowwwwwwwwwwwwrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!


Yeah right. As if that's not funny enough, I have to enter through a kennel door because the panels are six feet tall. I'm thinking of sub-leasing the space to some howler monkeys from the Nashville Zoo. At least then I could charge admission.

That's the story of my life...