Dog pushes owner to the edge
It’s getting to be a problem. Study after study shows that many Americans are sleep deprived. Scientists are constantly telling us that in order to maintain good health we need a minimum of eight hours rest each night.
Yeah. Well tell that to Ladybug, our house canine.
If there is sleep deprivation in the Pletcher household, the depriver is the dog. If she isn’t prancing around several times during the night to go outdoors to “take care of business,’ she is wriggling her way nearer the top of bed between the sleeping (or desperate to sleep) forms of my lovely wife and I.
My wife is usually in bed before me, which means Ladybug parks her furry self next to her. Until I come to bed. All I have to do is point to the bottom of the bed and she hops up and shifts position to the foot of the bed (Ladybug, not my wife).
I set the alarm, snuggle in between the sheet and comforter and slowly nod off. Maybe an hour or so later Ladybug is standing over my wife or me, wagging her tail so viscously that it shakes the whole bed. That’s her signal that she wants to go outside. Most of the time, she wakes my wife, who gets out of bed and leads the dog to the door. Some of the time I do it. When she’s finished (the dog, I mean) she flies into the bedroom, leaping from the door to the bed, not caring a whole lot if she lands on whomever is left lying there.
Repeating that scene several times each night is common.
But what galls me more is waking up every morning hanging off the edge of the bed.
Let me explain.
Ladybug slowly works her way between us, moving up the bed. I feel someone pressing against me. Thinking it’s my wife, I roll over and lay an arm across her body. Then I realize that she’s not that furry (really, she’s not furry at all, but for sake of humor I had to write it that way) and instead it’s the dog that has come between us – literally.
“Ladybug, move,’ I whisper in a feeble pass at trying to get the dog to go back to the foot of the bed.
I wouldn’t mind it so much if we had a larger bed. But our Queen-size doesn’t easily accommodate two adults, two cats and one medium-sized dog.
I also wouldn’t mind so much if Ladybug weren’t so vocal about it. If I press up against her, she growls.
By sunrise, I’m clutching at about eight inches of the mattress. A couple of times I’ve had to catch myself to prevent falling.
If I try to roll over, I’m facing Ladybug’s snout. (She likes to put her head on my pillow).
So what’s the solution?
Well, we bought her one of those big doggie mattresses, but that didn’t work. She wouldn’t lie on it. We thought about closing the bedroom door, but then we didn’t want her to have an accident during the night.
We put her water bowl up at night to try to cut down on her nocturnal wanderings. That seems to help a little but it doesn’t solve the sleeping arrangement problem.
I suppose we could buy a bigger bed.
Truth be told, if we really minded it that much we’d just train her not to get on the bed in the first place. But you probably figured that out already, huh?
Hey, she’s part of the family. And really, who can resist those big brown soulful eyes.
I mean Ladybug’s, not my wife’s. Hers are green with flecks of gold. And she doesn’t growl if I get too close.
Have a good day.
Jim Pletcher is the Herald-Standard’s business editor. he can be reached by e-mail at jpletcher@heraldstandard.com.