Zinnias’ new bed has drawn lots of attention, and it’s prompted me to take a more careful look, as long as the opportunity is right in front of my nose, at how dogs sleep around one another. I am planning my amateur study of this.
Last night, I observed the three dogs closely as they navigated the arrival of a comfy new bed, ostensibly for Zinnia. I watched them closely on and off for two hours. I found that five or six times within every hour, the dogs get up and switch places with one another.
The new bed is really for everybody.
First, I saw Zinnia sleeping in Fate’s much smaller bed.
Then, I saw Fate sleeping in Zinnia’s more giant bed.
Then I saw Bud get up out of his wicker throne, steal my chair, climb to the top of a pile of blankets I used when I had hypothermia, and go to sleep.
Fifteen minutes later, each dog had moved to a different bed, and Bud was in Maria’s lap snoring as she was reading. Unlike us, dogs don’t sleep in the same place all night; they are almost constantly in motion. One dog is everybody else’s bed, first come, first serve. It’s like musical chairs without the music.
Our small brown dog was asleep on the sofa while our giant dog was laying
on the floor. Both were content. Then the big dog sat up and started whining,
looking at the little dog. Finally, the littler dog moved, the big
dog immediately jumped into that spot and was contest again. The little dog
seemed happy on the floor.
Sharing is always good! Even if you can’t anticipate it or figure it out! THEY CAN figure it out
Susan M
On a lake house trip with my friend’s family, I brought an 18-inch fleece crate mat for my mini poodle (12 lbs). When she froze at the sight of so much bare hardwood floor (tactility issues), and retreated up to safety on a futon, we rearranged all the available area rugs for her to be able to move about the house, and turned to find my friend’s 85 lb pit bull contorted to fit comfortably within the mat’s inch-high bordered confines – except her tail. Funniest thing I ever saw! When someone chided her that ‘it wasn’t hers’, I retorted that if she could fit herself into it, she was welcome to use it.