We both sleep with Oliver, our five year old Shih-tzu. (The dog is a stud.) We have three other dogs who all have their special night spots – except for the baby, and she sometimes gets to spend part of the night with us. She only gets to spend part of the night because she likes to wiggle around and gets up way to early. What wakes us up in the morning is not her licking

our

faces, but she starts licking Oliver’s face and then he starts yelling at her. So during one of our nightly strolls, we will scoop her up and deposit her in her crate.

The cool thing about Sofi is that she likes to romp all over the bed and anything in it before she picks a spot. Since she only weighs five pounds it’s cute to have her stroll over your head, down your front and sit down on your belly to survey her territory.  She tries her best to sleep between legs. That’s definitely a no-no, so we each put our legs together and she will curl up in the small of our backs or in our “laps.”

Derby sleeps in his crate.  When we start turning off the lights, he marches right it and circles and plops down ready for the night.

Sedona curls up on the small sofa at the end of our bed, but usually moves to “her” chair in the living room.

So you got a problem with this arrangement?

Seems that some animal experts say that as soon as we let a dog into our bed, we have ceded some leadership role in the pack. I’m having enough problems keeping them from soiling our nest, let alone sleeping in our bed.

We do have a problem with Oliver turning into 20 pounds of immovable object once he is settled.  He will snuggle right up against one of us and just dares us to nudge him for more room.  It takes an all out, get wide away, sit up and push him to a new spot, then watch to make sure he doesn’t circle around and end up in the same place, activity.

And he snores. Something about those short little noses.

During the winter, having that lump by your feet is sometimes nice.  Did you know that the name Three Dog Night originates with how cold it was?  Australians would judge how cold it was by how many dingoes it took to keep them warm on cold nights. A three dog night was the worst.

How’s the animal you sleep with?