Ding ding ding. Or at least ISTR this is the answer. I can’t remember where I saw this, but I remember a documentary about wolf behavior, and they said, basically, this:
[ul]
[li]Packs sleep with members facing in different directions to detect threats.[/li][li]Pack members sleep with some part of them touching each other, so that, for example, east facing dog will “feel” when west facing dog alerts to a threat.[/li][/ul]
My Mollie does exactly this. Some part of her has to be touching me. No matter how she starts the night, when she is serious about getting to sleep, it’s head next to my knee, butt next to my ribs. Which also means she is facing the door, where a threat is most likely to come from. Charley, who does not dig sleeping on the bed, sleeps on the floor on the other side of me from Mollie. Back up against the bed. And she is facing the windows, second most likely place for a threat to come from.
So, all of this kind of fits with the pack behavior idea. Or maybe I just like this idea.
My JRT sleeps on our bed in a dozen different positions. Sometimes his head is up near ours, sometimes he’s at the bottom of the bed curled up facing our feet. It seems fairly random, unless he gets cold and then burrows under the covers and sleeps wherever he can find available space.
If you don’t want your dog to sleep in a certain position you need to correct the dog or kick him off the bed. Sleeping on the bed is a privilege, not a right, and the dog shouldn’t be allowed to abuse the privilege.
Our two goldens are forbidden to sleep on the bed for the night. However the morning routine is hilarious.
They sleep curled up close together but about 4:30 am they separate one to each side of the bed. Then they keep the golden eye on both of us. The moment one of us displays any semblance of being awake, such as opening one eye to check the time, they are both up on the bed in a flash settling in for the morning wake up routine.
However their heads are up towards ours, with them in the middle between us.
My Saint Bernard usually (when we let her on the bed) lies down with her head toward the foot of the bed, too. I’d guess that it’s nothing more complicated than that she wants a clear view of the room, so she puts her head toward the nearest edge. Also, she likes hanging her head over the edge sometimes. I reckon it’s more about where they want their head to be than deliberate aiming of the ass.
I think the dog is just trying to keep his/her face closest to the door so he/she can respond quickly if anyone walks in that door. Have you tried moving your head to the end of the bed and your feet away from the door ? Like sleep with your feet toward the headboard ?
