She said – NO DOGS ON THE BED!

We somehow became one of “those couples” who share their bed with their pets.   When we got Mia, back in 2004, it was cute.  A tiny little puppy with her head on our pillows snuggled right between the two of us.  Then she got bigger. And more greedy.  There was a time, shortly after we acquired Sophie in 2005 that there were no dogs in the bed. Perhaps it was because of our lack of sleep with a newborn at this time.

This soon changed. Shortly after our move to our new home, and an upgrade to a King size bed, the dogs started making an appearance once again on our lovely, new, king sized mattress.  There was severe protest from my side, mostly because I had just bought new sheets for the bed and I remembered the destruction that took place to our old sheets (now on one of our guest beds, he -he). For the most part, Chris respected my thoughts on the matter and left the dogs on the floor.  Or so I thought…..

One day I came home after a particularly long day at work and Chris approached me in the hall outside of the bedroom with a sheepish look on his face. His first words were, “Don’t be mad, OK?”  Never a great way to start out a conversation.  He proceeded to tell me Sophie had chewed a hole in the middle of our new, expensive comforter.  Of course, I questioned him how this was possible since our bed was so high I could barely get on it at night, let alone our top-heavy shelties.  Turns out, when I was leaving in the morning for work, Chris was lifting the shelties up onto the bed for a late morning snooze.

So for a while, the dogs steered clear of the bed…but they are back and I’m not sure how we got there again. Sure, I love animals and snuggling just as much as the next person but it seems that on the floor snuggling would satisfy me for the day.  So here I present my evidence as to why puppies should NOT be allowed to partake in a couple’s sleeping arrangements:

Exhibit A:  Chewed sheets/pillows/comforters.

Although our girls are pretty much past the chewing stage, every once and a while I catch them gnawing on a corner of the sheets. This may be that they are nervous, stressed or just plain neurotic. I don’t really care, my sheets all have chewed corners now. In fact just recently, Sophie chewed a gigantic whole in our “green room” guest sheets while Chris watched a football game – not even a corner, a huge gaping whole. How he was oblivious to this, I will never know, I think it is a man thing.

Exhibit B: Dog hair in your bed

Have you ever woke up with a hair ball in your mouth? If not, I don’t recommend going there. Shelties aren’t exactly known for their shed-free coats. (Although I did tell my mother this in high school in order to acquire my first sheltie. She did NOT do her research and believed her 14 year old daughter instead – silly mom)

Exhibit C: Destruction of furniture (scratch marks)

The foot of our bed has hundreds, if not thousands, of scratch marks in it from the shelties when they think it is time to get down.  Again – top-heavy dogs should not be jumping from the bed so they must be lifted down. Another perk of owning a sheltie. And if someone is out in the kitchen making food – well – expect more than one dainty “I would like to get down please” scratch.

Exhibit D: Massive take-over of space!

Recently, the girls have learned to respect my side of the bed. I think they sense my hatred of the whole “family bed” idea. I am a terribly light sleeper and not so pleasant when I don’t get a solid 8 hours.  However, they feel like Chris’s side of the bed is their domain. Like they deserve to be sleeping in a Tempur-Pedic.  I often awake in the middle of the night to Chris breathing on the back of my neck. Then I figure out that I am practically falling off my side of the bed. When I rise to survey the situation, I find the dogs have completely taken over his side, forcing him onto my side. Leaving the two of us to share half of a king (half of a king = a twin).  And god-forbid I try to move them back to the floor in the middle of the night when they have overtaken Chris’s half. I have been growled at (by Mia only) and once or twice I have seen teeth bared at me for an attempted move.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

So in the end, I feel I make very good points as to why the “family bed” should NOT include dogs (or kids for that matter, but that’s another subject completely).  If you would like to read Chris’s opinion on the subject, please click on the link marked “tags” to be taken directly to his point-of-view. Although I can’t imagine you would need to after all of my compelling evidence…

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