We have never been one to allow our dogs on the furniture, let alone sleep with us. It wasn’t too hard to enforce because Reid was never really a get-up-on-the-couch type of dog, and trying to coax her on the bed causes her to go into convulsions. All this changed when Pongo came along.
At first we were really good about enforcing the “no animals on the furniture” rule but eventually we broke down and allowed him on the couch when he was 8 or 9 months. Then, things just naturally progressed to the occasional sleep in the bed with us but that meant Steve and I didn’t sleep very well because Pongo has to be right in the middle, sprawled out, and touching both of us. We both would wake up shivering, a couple millimeters from the edge and more often than not, a dog head resting on my pillow inches from my face.
We’ve been tossing around the idea of a king bed for a while but have hesitated because of space. Our bedroom is not the conventional bedroom; it’s small, opens out to the living room (I know it sounds weird but it adds “character” to the house), and everyone has to walk through it to get to the living room. So, having a ginormous bed isn’t really conducive to good feng shui.
We decided to take the plunge though this weekend and buy a king bed because having Pongo sleep with us more often than not, outweighed the lack of space, the occasional bruised knee from whacking the bed corner as you walk to the living room, and the tight squeeze Steve now has to take in order to get into bed (I’m strictly speaking for myself here-I know Steve may not feel the same way but he has commented on how he “likes all the room” he has in bed).
Here’s Papa and Pongo “helping” Mama assemble the bed.
The new bamboo king bed assembled.
This is what Steve found when he came to bed…Pongo sound asleep on Papa’s pillow.
(The big lump on the right is me having fallen asleep while reading.)
The Pongo Experience 