A Canine Take on the Family Bed Theory

I am running on nothing more than fumes and lots of caffeine today.  And in this compromised state, I am officially admitting defeat to my husband, Jay.  Yes, Jay, I now agree that it was not a good idea to allow our puppy of seven months full access to our bed at night.  There you have it.  You win, I give.  And that's in writing.

Backtrack to the beginning of last week and the beginning of this whole debacle.  Jay left for a week long business trip on Tuesday.  Now, until that very day he left, our über-cuddly and therefore irresistible puppy, Willa, slept downstairs with Pippet, our other less-than-cuddly dog who normally wants nothing to do with us at night.  The night Jay left, Willa was unusually, shall I say, "spirited" (read:  spazzy) at her normal bedtime.  She refused to stay downstairs, repeatedly climbing past the gate we had blocking off the bottom of the staircase.  And of course, Pippet was close behind, not wanting to miss out on anything.  The end result was both dogs on our bed, which I allowed because Jay was gone, and because I'm spineless when it comes to dogs being cute (which of course they were).  Pippet eventually realized that nothing interesting was going on, that being upstairs was a waste of her precious canine time, and she removed herself to back downstairs.  Willa remained sleeping near me the entire night, being all cute and cuddly, even when she had pushed me to within inches of falling straight to the floor.  Repeat this scenario for the next five nights.  And thus, a monster (albeit an outrageously charming one) was born. 

Enter Jay back into the story.  Oy.  The first night he was back home was full of grumbling and exasperated sighs, due to the fact that his side of our bed was shanghaied by a warm ball of white and brown fur, snoring and snorting away happily within inches of his pillow.  I made out his under-the-breath grousings such as, "This is not going to work," and "This is ri-dic-u-lous."  I moved Willa to her bed that I had supplied on the floor near my side of our bed, and after a couple of attempts by her to get back onto our bed without success, she fell asleep on her new digs and remained there for the night.

The new sleeping plan worked for a couple of nights, and then Jay left for another trip last night.  Back up on our bed came Willa, ready for sleep, this time sans Pippet.  She went right to sleep, so I thought things would be copacetic if she slept there just for the night.  I would get her back to her floor bed when Jay got back the next night.  Well....Willa had different plans.  At 3:00 AM she decided it was the perfect time to start pacing the bed and chewing one of her bones.  She then jumped off the bed and went downstairs.  Shortly thereafter I heard the sleigh bells ring on the back door, which she uses to inform us of her desire to go outside.  Fine.  I went downstairs and let her out.  At this point, Pippet thought it was time to wake up for the day, and was found standing bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at the closet door where her food is kept, waiting for breakfast.  Letting her know aloud that no such thing was happening at that hour, I headed back upstairs, leaving both dogs staring at me expectantly from the kitchen.  They were on my heels by the time I got to my bedroom, (only after trying to wake both of our sleeping kids by crashing open their bedroom doors) and were both on the bed before I was even close to getting back in.  What ensued was like a circus in a two-person tent; elephants, trapeze artists, you name it.  Around four o'clock, after a WWF-worthy wrestling match, they finally fell back to sleep, Willa lying on my back, one of her toys in my face.  I don't think I ever fully got back to sleep.  Which is why I feel as I do, and why this is what my two dogs look like at this hour:
 

I will not post a picture of what I look like after our rough night, as I don't want to induce nausea on any kind readers hearty enough to have gotten this far in this long, drawn-out story.

And there you have it:  my tale that would make any dog trainer cringe, and will make Jay just about as smug as he can get.   My wrist is slapped, I know I did not make good choices (wow...I feel like I'm in kindergarten).  I am now accepting my sentence of biting the bullet and making sure both pooches sleep where they are supposed to sleep, and everyone is happy.  I'm thinking I may need some dumb luck.