Mr. McSprawly Bedhog

The little prince, Ollie our four-year-old Cairn Terrier, got into the habit of sleeping with us a couple years ago. His favourite thing is to snuggle down under the covers in the winter months. The upside of this arrangement is that he gets a weekly bath to keep the doggy BO to a minimum. The downside is that the little fella's 20 lb frame seems to take on St. Bernard proportions when he's sprawled across the sheets, even in a king size bed.

The husband and I have talked about sharing sleeping space with the dog, possibly getting him a new bed for the master floor or returning him to his crate since that's where he slept for the first two years of his life. But it just seems so cruel. How would we make him understand we still love him, but are tired of adopting odd or uncomfortable sleeping positions so we don't disturb him. You understand our predicament.

I had seen this pet bed in a catalog at some point, so decided to check it out. It's looks so cute and comfy, and it should be since it costs upwards of $300. Plus it's so big and bulky. How does that person have to get on and off the bed? And what if you forget it's there for a middle-of-the-night potty run since the middle age bladder seems to be shrinking. That could get downright painful and leave bruises if you hit it square on in the dark.

The husband got this bright idea to order a small baby bed with a side that drops to allow co-sleeping. We set it up, put a padded dog bed in it and placed it adjacent to my side of the bed at the foot. No dice. We put Ollie in it a couple times and he promptly hopped back onto our bed. So I pushed it over against the wall since the husband decided he'd train Ollie to sleep there once warmer weather arrived.

Yesterday I was running some errands, namely hauling these bags of purged clothes to the local recycling centre, when the teen texted me a pic. She's on spring break this week and next.

Sure enough, there was Ollie lounging on his bed like a champ. He was hogging space on her double sized bed that morning, so she rolled his bed into her room and he was easily coaxed onto it. Go figure.