Twas the night before the night before Christmas

So exactly where you to keep 12 dogs in one house? Our house is not really big. And we have two or three non-dog rooms, but we don't use those rooms much either. You don't need a bigger house to have more dogs, you just need to give more of it over to them. 

Buzz Lightyear got neutered today and he's zonked out in his crate tonight. His prospective adopters are coming to pick him up on Friday. I need to keep him calm and mellow and healing until then. So Buzz is in his crate and everyone was in nighttime sleeping positions by 7:30 this evening. It's cold and dark outside so everyone comes in and goes to bed early. The downside to that is what happened last night, I was up three different times letting dogs out to relieve themselves and then had to get everyone settled down again each time.

These aren't great pictures, but I'll show you where everyone sleeps at night.

In the office: There are five crates set up in here, including two giant Dane crates. There's three more dog beds without crates that are used during the day. In here at night currently are Winston, Chase, Buzz Lightyear, our Max, and the puppy, Dasher. Max would be in the bedroom, but when there is mud and standing water in the dog yard he is too dirty and I won't let him in the bedroom. He sleeps in a crate, the mud dries up and falls off, and I wash the blankets in his crate every couple of days. 

Buzz in his crate this evening after his surgery.

Chase and Winston. These side-by-side crates are normally used by Della and Serena

during the day. The girls were not real happy about the boys taking them over. Serena in particular

really likes "her" crate, which is the one on the right currently occupied by Winston. 

This picture probably doesn't give an accurate impression of the size of the crates, 

but they 54" long, 35" wide, 44" tall.

Max is in the crate on the left, and the puppy, Dasher, is on the right.

These two crates and the Dane crates are permanent fixtures. I have a top on these two

making a table out of it. Of course it's piled full of stuff. 

Max's crate is 48" long and the other one is 42". 

In the kitchen there are currently two large crates. I prefer to have none there but I set one up for Journey and it became semi-permanent. It was the only crate down there, however, until our population swelled to an even dozen, then I added a second kitchen crate, currently occupied by the pretty young rottweiler, Malia. When Journey got adopted, Kismet took over his crate. She goes in it automatically when she comes in the house, I really like and appreciate that.

If you're keeping score, that's seven dogs in the office and kitchen at night. That leaves five for the bedroom. If we're in a dry spell and Max is clean, he comes into the bedroom at night as well. Fosters generally do not, but more than a few have broken that rule over the years. 

On Clay's side of the room is Arby, who jealously guards the space against all intruders, including me. He barks at me when I come to bed at night. Theo is usually on a dog bed on the floor at the foot of our bed. There's another bed on that side of the room that Max uses if he's clean enough to be allowed in there, which hasn't been lately. 

On my side of the room there are two large dog beds that belong to Della and Serena. As with the crates, Serena has a definite preference between the two. Della will always sleep next to Serena. I think Maya thought Della was getting too close to me because she started coming over and sleeping in the space between my bed and the Danes' beds. It's a rather narrow spot but I put some beds down there and she stretches out.

I don't buy into the "I don't have enough room" excuse for not having more dogs. There is room, you make room for what matters.