We made the trip to South Dakota to get Mia from a breeder in Pierre.  She couldn’t have been a sweeter pup. A tiny little black and white fur ball. Potty training came easy to Mia and she fit into our family perfectly. We doted on her every waking minute, and she was even allowed to sleep between us in our bed.

The next spring, we decided we loved Mia soooo much we should have a second pup.  I contacted the breeder and found that Mia’s auntie was expecting a litter soon (scandalous twist – Mia’s auntie was prego with Mia’s dad’s pups.  So they are half sisters and also cousins. Weird) Right around this time I discovered I was pregnant with Wyatt, but I was determined to have this second puppy, so in July, we drove once again to South Dakota to retrieve our “second daughter”.

I should have known we were in trouble when Mia completely dissed Sophie upon their first meeting. She wanted nothing to do with that little fur ball. I guess I can see why – within her first 30 minutes in our house, she managed to pee three times and poop twice on the floor. It’s like she had been saving it up the entire ride home.  Then that night, with Mia tucked snugly into our bed and Sophie in her kennel in the kitchen, the howling began.  Sophie apparently figured out that she was the only one sleeping in the kitchen. (We weren’t doing this to be mean, we just require puppies to be potty trained before they can graduated to sleeping outside the kennel)  We found an easy solution – put Mia in the kitchen with Sophie and the howling stopped. This satisfied us, but royally ticked off our eldest dog. I think this may have been were the resentment started and the weird, neurotic behavior, so typical of Shelties, began.

If you think those are playful teeth showing, you're sadly mistaken.

So here we are, two Shelties, each with their own quirks and bizarre behaviors. I truly believe that Mia thinks she is a human and deserves all the same rights and privileges as the people do.  She is often times aloof, and if she is mad at you, she has been known to sit facing a wall so she doesn’t have to look at you. And every once and a while if she is really mad (mostly at me, she would never turn on Chris) she will simply run away.  I have found her combing the neighborhood, frantically looking for a new home.  This of course has only happened when I have just finished scolding her.  She also has a weird obsession with yelling and hugging. She hates them both.  If Chris answers the phone and yells out to the kitchen to pick up my end, Mia will run back and forth between the two of us jumping and barking the whole time. We don’t even try to have conversations in different rooms anymore. It’s pointless, you can not hear one another over the frantic barking and growling.  We also have stopped hugging when she is in the room, because this sends her into a tizzy as well.

Sophie, on the other hand, is a dog’s dog. She loves to go outside, roll in the mud, snow, rain, you name it.  She could care less about getting dirty, in fact, I think she prefers it.  She would live outside if we would let her (maybe we should?).  She has a thyroid problem which makes her pleasantly plump.  She does not care if we yell in the house, or hug, for that matter. This may be due to the pleasantly plump issue.  She does however, act as the watch dog of the house, barking at every little bump and creak the house makes.  I laugh because when Chris is out of town for the night, Sophie sleeps by the front door I believe watching for intruders. When he is home, she sleeps in our room.  She does make me feel safe in the house – no one’s getting in without her knowing about it.

So this is the story of how we ended up with two Shelties. I know Chris is continuously getting grief from his hunting buddies about his big bad “hunting dogs”, but they seem to fit into our family nicely. And they do keep us quite entertained – and don’t they say laughter is the best medicine for anything?

It's hard to resist loving those faces

So when the time finally came where Lisa and I agreed on getting our first sheltie, I pretty much knew I would be attached to her (even though I claimed I wouldn’t). Mia was a blessing in our house. It was our “training child” if you will, a way to get used to the responsibility of another between myself and Lisa. While mom likes to talk about the oddness of Mia, I kind of have an understanding with the dog. Since I work out of the home, we spend a lot of time together. She’s almost always laying by my side, or at my feet under my desk. When I get up to do something outside my office, she comes with. When I’m gone, she’ll wait near the door waiting for my return. She makes a wonderful companion, even though she doesn’t retrieve waterfowl.

Sophie's ears tipped naturally - a great sheltie trait

Sophie was another great addition to the house. From the day she arrived, you could tell she was going to be one of the special dogs that only comes around every so often. Out of the dozen or so dogs I’ve had in my life, she’s probably the “sweetest”. She’s a cute dog, and she knows how to milk it. She’s always starving for attention, and likes to lay near you whenever possible.

So this leads me to the question about whether or not dogs should be in the bed.  Despite the damage from chewing, the hair, and the scratching on the bed post; I still consider their presence worth it.  The dogs have learned to “adapt” to sleeping in our bed, and seem to know how Lisa and I sleep and our tendencies.  They typically stay on my side of the bed, and more often then not, Sophie is around the middle of the bed and Mia on the pillow next to me.  Mia never growls at me at night (if she has, I didn’t wake).  She lays peacefully up against me like she did as a small puppy (she could fit in your hand).  I call her my “snuggle puppy”, and I don’t feel I lose an ounce of my manhood admitting it. The dogs are comforting in what can be a stressful world. That’s the best thing about a good pet, they help you relax and take your mind of your day. It’s another way to give unconditional love in a way you do a child, and as a parent, it’s one of the most rewarding feelings.

One day in the future, Lisa and I will purchase our final home along the Missouri River in Bismarck. And if I get my way, the dogs will always be welcome on the bed…we just might have to get a bigger bed.

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.

Chewed sheet corner

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

Gross picture, but needed to be illustrated

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)

Furniture destruction by the claws of the puppies

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!

Even in pre-Sophie days, where am I supposed to sleep???

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…