I am certain that all of you have heard the saying, “If the mountain will not come to Muhammad, then Muhammad will come to the mountain.”
But what happens when neither of them will move?
A few years back, having spoiled each new dog which was added to my ever growing pack, I had to move up a notch from a twin sized bed to a double. The reality of the sizes came when I realized that allowing the animals to curl up with me at night lessened my chances of any sleep at all. And many more opportunities to find myself in such positions as:
The Twisted Fetal Pose
The S Curve
and the ever popular, There Is No Room at the Inn.
Sleep…
You see, my dogs ranged from a 35 pound beagle to a 77 pound Lab-Pyranees mix. I, on the other hand, am merely a human of mixed descent who only longs for the comfort of snuggling with a dog. And the possibility of sleeping through the night without awakening the next day in the form of a perverted pretzel.
But that was not to be.
My desire had become a nightly struggle for a place to spread my legs full length without having to lay across a dog’s growling body.
The mountain…
Enough of that. So what does that have to do with Muhammad? What is that mountain of which I speak?
Blankets.
In order to sleep soundly, I am one of those people who needs to be under a cover. It could be a blanket, a quilt in winter, or a sheet in summer. It doesn’t really matter. The point is that this is essential for a good night’s rest.
Yet nightly, no matter how well I planned my entrance into the double sized bed, I found myself the loser. I’ve even tried strategically placing stuffed animals to block off my designated spot from the dogs. However, my coveted spot ended up under the dead weight of a snoring pooch.
To retrieve my much needed object usually resulted in neither Muhammad nor the mountain moving. And I ended up with some part of my anatomy exposed to the air.
So much for a good night’s sleep.
But wait, there’s more!
I have discovered that no matter the size of the bed, dogs tend to find that the area chosen to be suitable for a human body is infinitely more comfortable than, say, the rest of the bed. No matter the bed size, no matter the dog size, they have a natural instinct which allows them to determine the highly complex maneuvers necessary to occupy every square inch of mattress that could be used for human positioning.
I’m beginning to wonder what a large sized dog bed would be like to sleep on? And if I slept there, would the dogs get off my bed?
I actually tried it once. They preferred my bed. And I ended up with an aching back.
Conclusion…
I am now down to two dogs.
One is an old, crotchety thing that adopted up a few years back. The little dog had been hit by a car a few months prior to her arrival. In spite of all that, she’s become as perky and happy as a puppy at a doggy playground!
And she sleeps soundly on a dog bed in the front room, occasionally growling at any small interloping child who inadvertently wandered too closely to her abode.
The other is adopted from a library customer years ago. She has taken up to sleeping in my room, even though she’s not my dog. But she, thankfully, sleeps on the floor on her own bed.
On occasion, she jumps up, says hello, gets a few pets, then retreats to her comfy space near the dresser.
The arrangements are far more suited to the doggy-master relationship idea.
I have come to the conclusion that dogs, while warm in the winter, and flea ridden in the summer, belong on the floor.