COUNTING SHEEP

Tired Kate’s having trouble getting her beauty sleep

I’m wondering if, as you battle the mozzies and these warmer nights, you’re also struggling with dogs, cats or children in your bed?

ask because I thought my days of wrangling toddlers in the bed were over, but lately we’ve had a new bedtime threat – the dog.

She’s a companion dog – she loves and needs to be around people all the time, including bedtime. She adores a snuggle and has been spoilt by sleeping in my daughter’s bed every night since she was a puppy. It’s a win-win because my daughter gets to cuddle up to a real-life teddy bear, and the pooch clearly appreciates the snuggles.

But when my daughter is away or on a sleepover, who gets the dog? Muggins.

I admit, I’m a soft touch, but I’m also a dog person. And to be fair, at three kilos, she’s a tiny wee thing and probably the equivalent of having a cat sleep on your bed.

However, because sleeping with us is not her usual routine, and because we obviously don’t have the magic touch my daughter has, she’s like a wriggly toddler in the bed – moving positions, waking up, sighing and pushing us around.

The upshot is we get no sleep. When I say “we”, I mean me. My husband snores on oblivious. He manages to turn his back, put a pillow over his head and pretend none of it is happening. Then he has the audacity to announce how tired he is in the morning because he’s had “no sleep” because “the dog kept me up”.

“The dog kept you up?!” I’ll reply, incredulous. “Odd how you were snoring all night then.”

I raised the issue of dogs sleeping in beds on my radio show one day and got heated feedback. People went berserk on both sides of the argument. There are those who are adamant the only place a dog should sleep is in a kennel outside, those who insist dogs remain on the floor, and then those who say they’ve always slept with their dogs. Some even have large Rottweilers sleeping with them, no worries.

I don’t see how a dog sleeping on your bed is any different to a cat actually, which lots of people have on their beds, yet somehow the dog-on-bed thing seems more divisive.

At work, I asked a fellow small-dog owner if he slept with his dog on the bed.

“Yes,” he replied. “And not only that, often two toddlers join us too …”

That’s one crowded bed. And it does make me wonder how many of us are sleeping with dogs, cats or children for that matter, in our beds each night? How much sleep are we actually getting?!

If you love your family pet though, what’s the big deal?

Surely they’re welcome on the bed? Having said that, if ours keeps me up again all night, I’ll be loving her from a distance – and she can sleep with the teenagers, in one of their beds.