Sleeping with Wilbur

     The second night Wilbur was here, we did everything we had done the first night before bed.  Scratched him behind the ears.  Petted his belly.  Made sure he had food and water.  Inwardly congratulated ourselves on  the comfortable selection of chairs and couches for him to sleep on, both in the living room and downstairs in the family room.
     At about 1 a.m., he started scratching on our door.
     "He wants to come in and sleep on the bed," I whispered.
     "Well, he's not going to," Simon whispered back.
     There was silence for a minute, and then a huffing, wheezing sort of crescendo from outside the door.
     "What the heck is that?" I said, but I knew, even before I'd finished the question.  The Bassett Hound in Wilbur's Beagle/Bassett Hound mix was fighting its way out.  The relatively quiet, mellow guy we'd picked up at the pound, the middle-aged dog, rendered soft by years of people food and too many afternoon snoozes, was regaining a slice of his youthful vigor.
     He was working his way up to a howl.
     When it came it was glorious.  Full-throated, deeply masculine.  A howl any dog would be proud of.
     "It sounds like he's treed a raccoon right outside our door," I thought.
     Clara woke up and started crying.  Simon said some words that can't be repeated here.
     Clearly, action needed to be taken.  Simon is one of the more stubborn people I know. I could tell by the way his body stiffened and burrowed down in the blankets next to me that he was entrenching.  It's hard to say who would have won the Simon/Wilbur stand-off, but I wasn't willing to sacrifice a night of sleep to find out.
     "I'm putting him in the basement," I said.  I opened the door, grabbed Wilbur by the collar, and tried to get him to come with me.  He resisted by sitting down on his butt and didn't seem to mind terribly much when I dragged it across the carpet.
     The basement, lest you think me cruel, is actually completely finished, with carpeting and soft chairs.  Wilbur, however, was only slightly less loud down there.
     "He's lonely.  I'm going to sleep with him," I announced after ten or fifteen minutes more of Wilbur's gravelly bay.  
     "I don't want you to go down there," Simon whispered fiercely. "I think we should wait him out."
     "I'm going!" I hissed.
    I wrapped myself up like a burrito at the base of the couch where Wilbur settled himself, covering even my head.  Throughout the night, I'd hear a snuffling sound and see Wilbur's slender black nose--the only delicate part of him--appear through the end of my goose down shroud.  He was checking to make sure I was still there.