Why I turn down gracious offers to stay with friends during evacuations

After sleeping for 10+ hours I feel a little more like normal.

The Dog slept soundly and is more like his normal self this morning.

We’re still evacuated it doesn’t look like that’s going to change today. It might but I’m thinking more likely I’ll be here at the hotel until tomorrow.

I’m good with it.

Friends have offered shelter and I am very grateful for those offers.

We’ve not taken them up on their unbelievably generous offers for a couple reasons.

1) We hate to impose…

Yes I know friends say it’s not an imposition and they mean it. But think about it, It’s one thing to have guests stay for the weekend or a defined time and you can deal with that. In this case, I can’t tell anyone when I’ll be leaving. They can’t make plans for their weekend or possibly well into next week for that matter.

2) We have a large dog…

Believe me 85 pounds of curious happy go lucky retriever is not something you invite into your home lightly.

The dog is very well behaved. He likes cats, he likes children, and generally he will respond to command unless he’s wound himself up to the point of needing to hear me tell him he’s a bad dog.

Think about this,  if your house isn’t childproofed it’s surely not retriever proofed.

All those expensive hand blown, one of a kind glass trinkets artfully arranged on a shelf 5 inches off the ground?

GONE! in one swipe of happy puppy tail.

That bookshelf with magazines and expensive coffee table books casually arranged to invite someone to read them? HAHAHAAHA that shelf is cleared and nicely dusted by a hairy dog trying to sniff the squirrel he can see through the window behind the shelf.

When we decline your gracious invitation, It’s nothing personal my friends. You don’t have a dog in your house for a reason… You like your lives to have some order and you prefer to be able to display your art in a manner around your home that is appealing to you.

This is as it should be, and I appreciate from the bottom of my heart your willingness to open your home to us…

But I’ve been in your homes and I look at the beauty, and picture a large dog, no matter how well behaved in the middle of your place, and I shudder.

Believe me a hotel room is cheaper and is going to do less damage to our relationship.

Even those of my friends who have pets.

Think about this… My dog likes cats… he wants to play with them and often they don’t want to play with him. This results in the potential for chases, usually ending in crashing crockery.

Those of you who have dogs. You know that some dogs just don’t get along with other dogs. My dog is generally sweet but every once in a while he encounters another dog that says “your momma”.

This ends with me and the owner of the other dog having our shoulders yanked out of the socket because the two dogs have decided to take care of business and it’s all we can do to restrain them.

Imagine for a moment how that might play out if my dog is invading your dogs space…

If we stay then it’s going to be all about marching one dog outside while the other is inside, Then changing the guard 4 or 5 hours later. Your dog deserves not having their routine disrupted.

So unless my dog and your dog have met before and not had any issues I’m going to decline your invitation.

You may think this is all about the dog…

Well, yes and no.

It’s really about me. If I’m having to worry about your house being trashed accidentally, or our dogs fighting, or my dog chasing your cat out of the house…

I’m not going to be able to rest or get much of anything done. It’s really about my ability to tell the dog “Go lay down” and have him do that so he can rest too.

Being evacuated is stressful for a human, imagine what it’s like for a dog who doesn’t really understand what is going on or why.

The dog is part of my family too, so yes I guess a lot of it is about the dog. However a lot of it is about my friendships.

So don’t be offended when I turn you down.

It’s that I value our friendship more than the trivial cost of a hotel room.