cosmolinguist | Three in the bed and the little one said "woof woof woof"

We shut Gary downstairs at night but on rare occasions I guess the door doesn't close properly or else he's desperate enough to get upstairs with us that he gets the handle pulled down enough to open the door--he can jump high enough, to my surprise; I've seen it.

Usually he only does this when I've gone out but Andrew's still sleeping so he has to take such extraordinary measures to be let out for a pee. But last night, after we went to bed but before we turned off the lights to go to sleep, I heard some strange noises and then he came bounding into the room and into the bed.

We didn't let him up here at first because I didn't want a bed full of dog hair and my sleep is interrupted/fragile enough without any external help. Then we found out that Andrew and Gary clash for some reason when Gary's allowed in our room, especially on the bed, so it was definitely not going to happen even on the days when he looks really sad to be left on his own (I'm not the soft touch Andrew is, but even I have heartstrings that can be susceptible at times!).

Last night he didn't growl or snarl at all but he didn't spend any time near Andrew either, he strode to the top of the blanket next to me (on the side away from Andrew), burrowed underneath--no small feat for a dog that still hasn't learned he can't get under a blanket he's standing on--and seemed to have every intention of staying just like that. I don't think either of us wanted to get out of bed to shut him downstairs again, so we thought we'd see what happened...and he was perfectly well behaved all night.

Having Andrew spooning up to one side of me and the dog pressed against my legs on the other side did make it quite a production to move or turn or do anything, especially when I had to go for a wee in the middle of the night. I didn't want to wake Andrew and I didn't want to push the dog off the bed! I think I managed. Yoga has given me good practice at this kind of thing.

But it never got past being a challenge and into being a problem. It was too nice to have all the cuddles. I've gone to bed on my own tonight and I miss that.