Dogs in your bed, not on the dog beds

My qualified guess is that a lot of us do this. Here at Tuffies we speak to dog owners all day and it does slip out every now and then, that the dogs often sleep on or in the owners’ beds, which sometimes can become annoying and they are now looking for good dog beds that will compete with the soft, white linen. It is a tough competition because dogs are not only sleeping in the humans’ beds because they are somehow nicer than the dog beds, but because domestic dogs are so attached to their owners that they will do anything to be near them at all times. Many dogs, of course, have never been allowed as much as a look into the bedroom and would not know what they are missing, but the ones that have tried sleeping on the duvet next to their master will always prefer this. Obviously with the right training the dog should be able to understand a friendly command: “Go on your bed” and the dog should just stay there all night if it is in your bed room.

However, there are many people who are happy to have their dogs in the bed permanently. You’d better be a bit nifty with the vacuum cleaner if you do this every night. From time to time, if I am on my own for a night I pick a dog to sleep on my bed. Just one night and everything is full of grit and hairs. I leave the other two dogs on their dog beds in the sitting room because it would be impossible to get any room in my bed with three big pointers there.

I have never had a flee on my dog, so I don’t worry about itchy results of this, I just think it’s jolly nice to hear the deep snoring of the dog beside me. Waking up in the morning you just have to reach an arm out to clap a hairy face, which results in a wagging tail at the other end. All my dogs are well behaved and stay put till it is getting up time. I then get myself in the office where there are plenty of dog beds and my companion happily settles down on one of those simply because they are now near their master.

I remember once, it must have been about 14 years ago when Alice, my Hungarian Vizsla was a pup/young dog and we went camping. It was freezing cold and I had only brought one of the little travel dog beds, which, for a wee Vizsla, was not warm enough. She had the sense to see that my sleeping bag would be nice and warm, so she stuck her head in to it and carried on till she had her nose by my feet and her whole body completely wedged inside the sleeping bag. There she stayed all night. Not that comfortable for me, but she was happy and we kept each other warm. Who could resist this with a young dog?