Stella’s Bed of Roses
Stella’s Bed of Roses
[Guest Post by Kristy Davis (Tracie’s executive assistant, who also happens to have an MFA from Bennington College (and an MA from Columbia School of Journalism, too!) in case you’re wondering why this is so uber-charming)]
Dog beds are a hot commodity in our house.
With two dogs—Stella, our seven-year-old retriever-German shepherd mix, and Pearl, our two-and-a-half-year-old Australian shepherd mix, and the grandpa cat, Abe, who is pushing 17—our couch often looks like an explorer’s ship, everyone on board and ready to set sail!
Recently, we lost our third dog, Dakota, who was 15 years old and had attitude to burn. Plott hounds like Kota were bred to hunt bear. Kota was fiercely loving, and we miss her every day, though she’d been incontinent for a year, resulting in many soiled dog beds, which we’d rewashed constantly.
Around this time, Tracie asked me if I’d like to test out one of the new high-performance dog beds by Crypton, a furniture-design company that uses stylish textiles and designs by acclaimed artists such as William Wegman to craft durable, stain-resistant dog beds.
I was thrilled to try out a Crypton product because I’d been a fan of their “Good Dog/Bad Dog” beds, which I’d learned about when the company joined the New York Dog Film Festival as a sponsor. The Crypton photos inspired Stella’s and Pearl’s very homemade Halloween costumes: Pearl—devil, Stella—angel.
After Kota died, Stella refused at first to return to what has mostly been her dog bed, but borrowed by the matriarch of the pack on her last day. When I introduced Stella to her new bed, a beautiful blue oval, patterned with a textile called “Bed of Roses,” she looked at me as if to say, Oh no, I couldn’t possibly…
Later, she retrieved my converse sneaker and placed it in the center of the Bed of Roses next to a half-chewed bone: Yours. Gracious Stella! As the second dog, and “middle sister,” she was used to hand-me-downs. A bed that didn’t smell like another dog was news to her.
Bad Dog, Good Dog: Did someone say TREAT?
I don’t have to be the leader of the pack. That’s the job of my boyfriend, Dan, who’d adopted Kota from a shelter when she was three, Stella from a neighbor’s litter, and Pearl from the same shelter as Kota. While the dogs do treat me as one of their own, Stella’s assigning me my own dog bed was a bit much!
With some coaxing, Stella took to the new bed and spent a night there, sighing and snoring, and perhaps dreaming of her pack re-united: Kota out stomping about in the yard, giving hell to the chickens and the cable guy, while Abe and Pearl cuddle on the couch, ready to set out soon for the next big adventure.
Crowded Couch: Abe & Pearl
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