Friday, August 22, 2014

Mushroom gets a 2nd chance

A typical night for us involves putting Badger and Mushroom in their crates for bedtime. We started doing this when Badger was a puppy (and Mushroom wasn't even with us) to get him used to his crate and keep him out of trouble during the night. But the dogs don't get into much trouble these days, being older, more used to our apartment, and more settled in their routines. So at the start of summer, we decided to try out letting the dogs sleep uncrated in our bedroom.

The first night was a disaster. As L was moving the dog beds from our living room to our bedroom, Mushroom actually peed on one of them. This was unexpected considering that we always take them out to potty before bedtime, and the dogs almost never have indoor accidents. I convinced L to let Badger stay in the room, but Mushroom went back to her crate for bedtime.

That became our new routine - put Mushroom in her crate, then we would go into our room with Badger. Mushroom didn't seem to mind, but we felt a little bad for her. We decided to let her have another chance last night. Despite me having to shoo her off the bed three times, we considered it a success as there were no accidents. Well, I consider it a success. I think L might have gotten up several times during the night to make sure everything was okay.

I'm not a morning person, but this face gets me out of bed

Do your dogs sleep in your room at night? How does it affect your sleep?

3 comments:

  1. We've always allowed our dogs to sleep on our bed and have never had any problems. Our current two like to curl up as close to us as possible to either of us but it doesn't really effect our sleep. I guess we are just used to it after over 25 years of being pet parents.

    Cindy

    P.S. I have to add that the dogs had to earn the right by learning that if we say "off" they have to get off. We also have had some that preferred their dog beds but would stay in the bedroom all night.

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  2. What a cute photo! Maybe things will be smooth from now on:)

    Kaya & Norman have slept on my bed since day one. Lucky for all of us, they've never gotten into any trouble(or even out of bed) so the routine stuck. They do like to cuddle up close and I sometimes have to reposition them or tell them to move but I love having them close to me and it doesn't effect my sleep. Other might hate it!

    Nowadays, sometimes Norman is too lazy to get off the couch at bedtime and he stays there all night...and well into the morning:)

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  3. I would love to let the dogs actually sleep in the bed with us, but I absolutely can't sleep if something is touching me. I already make L stay on the other side of the bed. It is nice to have the dogs in the room with us though.

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