My indoor yard

It breaks my heart that I don’t have a fenced yard for my dog to run around in.
But I know the expense of such a large fence is too great for it to be something my husband and I are likely to get done while Sensi is still alive. That breaks my heart too.
This is not to say Sensi doesn’t get exercise — we do walk in parks, and on the treadmill, and he has plenty of stimulating activities to keep him mentally balanced.
But I just want some space for him to open up and really run around. Unfortunately, his aversion to most other male dogs puts the dog park out of the picture for us.
I don’t know why it took two years for me to realize this, but I have a giant basement. And other than some cardboard boxes and things I’m storing for family members — all of which fit neatly into one little corner — my giant basement is unfinished and empty. Just a big open space waiting for someone to turn on a light and dust off the cobwebs.
On Saturday, with the help of my mother, we did just that.
And on Sunday, I brought Sensi down there for his first romp around the basement.
One section of the basement didn’t even have any lightbulbs until my mother and I installed them on Saturday and so, Sensi has avoided this part of the basement every time he’d been down there previously.
Turns out dogs aren’t crazy about dark corners either.
But once I turned on all the lights, I ran around in a big circle and got him to follow me. He kept stopping at the stairs as if to say, “What are we doing down here? Don’t you want to go back upstairs and play?”
I imagine I’ll break him of that pretty quickly.
We both wore out after just a few minutes of running around. Sensi looked elated.
Next on the to-do list: Buy a new package of tennis balls so we can play fetch down there too.