Our dog Princess, is about 11 years old. We’re not sure because she was a pound pup and SPCA just estimated her age. In the last year or so it’s become increasingly more difficult for her to jump up and down off our bed. (Yeah, we’re those people who let dogs sleep in our bed with us even if they are a 75 pound Rottweiler mix.) Lately, she’s decided that it’s best for her to just sleep in her own bed which is right next to ours. That is until around midnight when she decides that she can’t stand not sleeping with us.
Last night was another one of those nights.
Click, clack, click go the nails on the floor.
Thwap, thwap, thwap goes the tail on the wall.
Wake up! Wake up! the Princess cries!
I start to crawl out of bed to help her up. “Don’t do it,” I hear a muffled voice say. “What?” I ask. “Don’t do it! We’ll be doing this every night. Let her learn to go back to bed.” I get back under the covers. It’s breaking my heart to hear her cry, but just when I can’t stand it anymore…scratch, scratch, scratch. Thump. She goes back to sleep in her own bed.
Aaawwww!!! I hope the training goes by quickly. We trained our baby to sleep, took a whole course and learned sleep is a skill people have to learn – what?! He’s an excellent sleeper now, very independent. A little too much – when we lost power during the Texas winter storm, we brought him to our bed and he thought it was party time. He’d never slept in our bed before; it was a very long night LOL
When I visited my sister I completely ruined my sleep my nephew’s sleep schedule. 🙈 The struggle is real!
Thanks for sharing. Enjoy her. Our old girl kept us up all night last night, but we fear she doesn’t have a lot of nights left.
We don’t have a dog, but out cats have us well trained.
This is our dog too! She is 11 as well and always slept with us. She would thwump her tail and whine in the middle of the night waiting for me to pick her up. At some point, we just stopped too and now she is content in her bed next to ours. Now needing help sometimes climbing the stairs at night is our next challenge… Good luck!
What a sweet face she has…good luck with this next phase.
WHO COULD SAY NO TO THAT FACE. (Sorry for shouting. But really. Who could say no to that FACE?) As for us, we don’t have the dog-in-the-bed conundrum, but we have been trying to sleep train our new puppy. Right now she’s in a crate until her little puppy bladder lets her go for longer (and until she doesn’t chew everything in sight). Different ends of the spectrum I suppose, but loss of sleep looks the same in EITHER direction…
She’s beautiful and it is hard to watch them age. And yes, my dog has me wrapped around his tail.
I don’t know if I could have been strong like you, and I probably would have picked Princess up (maybe with a crane, though. Wow, 75lbs!). Pets are truly family members, but their life spans are so short. Maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to be, so we can have time with lots of incredible creatures.
Awww, what a beautiful pupper! I love the “click, clack, click go the nails” part of your slice. It’s so hard to say no to our critters.
Our outside dog loves to come in and visit but then head back outside.
Our cats, they have us well trained as to when dinner time is. After that, they enjoy their time snoozing and playing with cat toys!
Thank you for sharing this enjoyable pet slice today! 🙂
“I get back under the covers. It’s breaking my heart to hear her cry, but just when I can’t stand it anymore…scratch, scratch, scratch. Thump. She goes back to sleep in her own bed.” Hope it continues tonight.
Sounds easier than sleep training a child!