I was laying in bed this morning, my wife had left for work, and the dog decided to join me, as she frequently does. I reached over and gave her a good morning pet and then stopped to get up. Then the dog gave me the international non-verbal canine “please continue” sign by pawing at nothing specifically. So, I reached back over and gave her a few more good morning strokes. She responded by giving me a few good morning licks to the nose and cheek.
I mused pleasantly how two completely different species of animals could share a little morning comfort and thought “wouldn’t it be nice if we humans could all just get along too.”
I think about this sometimes when I look at my three dogs. All are a different as could be, but to them, weight and the color of one’s fur is completely irrelevant. All that matters is whether you want to play tug-of-war or not. They don’t care if the humans around them are rich or poor, or what color their “fur” is. All they care about is whether that person will pat their bellies or not.
They’re blessed with the ability to take joy in the smallest things. When I come home from a quick run to the store, they greet me with ecstatic glee, just thrilled to be in my company again. When I give them a new stuffed toy to eviscerate, you’d think they’d won the lottery. A squirrel in the yard is an occasion of great rejoicing. They know they’ll never catch it, and probably would have no idea of what to do if they did, but man, there’s a chase in the works and they dance with anticipation. Mealtimes are soemthing else which send the Tails of Exceeding Gladness into motion. “Oh boy! Dog food! My favrorite!” And, then, at night, there is no greater pleasure than hopping up onto the humans’ bed. They circle and then plop down with contented grunts and sighs. All is right with their world and barring a stern rebuke for chewing on the wrong thing (which is only a small dark spot in an otherwise endlessly sunny life), it always will be.
I wish I could change places with them, just for an hour or two. Adults forget the knack of unflagging joy in living that they once had as children. I envy dogs that they never do.
The late great Miss Emily Kimberly always slept on her dog bed in the corner; we really had to beg to get her to come up on our bed. Every night around 3:30 am or so, she would get up and go to Mr. S’s side (he was her favoritest person EVER), nose his hand, get some petting, and go back to her bed, contented. We saw it as a little quest for reassurance in the middle of the night, checking to see that everything was OK. What a sweetheart.
Miss Dottie is never so happy as when she’s lying under my desk at my feet.
Miss Scout often shares her doghouse with Tommy Boy the cat. Interspecies freindships like that amaze me.
It is quite wonderful to be so cozy and warm, snuggling with my lady to my side, the dog by my legs and the kitten on my head. My girlfriend hears me apologize to the kitten and/or the dog when I reposition myself during the night and bump either one of them. When I wake up, both dog and kitten stretch out their fore limbs and within seconds we’re all yawning and scratching and “saying” good morning to eachother. Wish I was back there now.
My cat has to visit me every night and sleep on my chest for a little while before she leaves for the night, and if she’s having a particularly nice time sleeping on me, she’ll stick her little paw up and pat my face. Awww. She has apparently taught this to my husband’s cat, too, who does this now to him, and never did it before my cat moved in.
Our cats have learned behavior from our actions around the house. Havoc now will stand on her hind legs, reach up and hug me. No claws, no scratching, just a hug. Both have learned that they can get my attention with a gentle poke of the paw. So when it gets chilly at night, they will move from their usual positions at the foot of the bed to the top, where they will poke me until I let go of the covers so they can burrow under them with us. One night I’m going to taperecord the sounds we must make: the purring counterpointing the snoring.
My dog, Ramush, likes to spoon. He likes to sleep under the covers and will curl iup with his back pressed up against my stomach. I’m sure it’s one (of the many) contributing causes of my continuing spinsterhood. But I’m not chucking my hound out of my bed for just any Tom, Dick or Harry.
My Polaris likes to sleep on her back with her head resting on a pillow, just like a human. If she can’t squeeze in betweeh hubby and I, she’ll lay at the bottom of the bed and use one of our legs as a pillow. Should we happen to move, she lets out a little whimper/groan of displeasure and repositions herself. (I’ve only ever managed to get one photo of her laying on her back because she always moves when I run to get the camera. It’s here, third one down.)
Sirius always sleeps under the covers, plowing his way beneath them by pushing with his nose. His favorite place to curl up is behind my knees.
And, yes, we apologize to the dogs if we bump them. Yeah, it’s our bed, but we think of it as simple courtesy to aplogize to distrubing any sleeping creature.
As my eldest cat gets older, she seems to be craving more physical contact. It used to be enough to sleep on the pillow next to me, or up against my back, or somewhere under the covers. But the last few weeks she has been insistent on snuggling up with my arms around her, as if I were hugging a pillow. She never used to like that. And if I roll over, she now has to switch sides to get back in my arms.
I have recently acquired a big dog and a big boyfriend. We all pile into my (fortunately also big) bed together and I try to avoid being crushed and smothered by the love. We are all quite heavy sleepers, and at one point I clearly remember dreaming that there were about fifteen people in my bed.
My friend suggested a night-vision web cam fixed upon us would provide with hours of entertaining footage, and I believe she is correct.
My favourite part was when the boy and I were spooning, me in front, and the dog curled up in front of me. Dog gently and lovingly rested his muzzle on the side of my neck, thereby placing his face mere millimeters from the face of the sleeping BF behind me. The blast of dog breath woke him up to a startlingly close-up view; thus was the moment ruined by a shriek and a leap out of bed. sigh
oh my. and i thought the divemaster and i were the only ones who did all these things!!
for the record, we sleep with four dogs and two cats in a king-sized bed. most of the time, anyway. the greenwing macaw isn’t invited, altho she’s big and bad enough to carve out however much of the bed she’d want - if she were.
the divemaster is 6.2 and i’m 5.10 and we ain’t tiny folk, either. the cats are a given, and at least two and sometimes three of the dogs (2 shepherds and 2 huskies) are present upon awakening most mornings. both of us have been known to apologize for disturbing either the canine or feline contingent at one time or another.
at my home, kitten blue, my elderly boy cat has started doing exactly what you described in an earlier post. today when i was home for lunch, my little boy kitten came and got on my lap and gave me an actual, honest-to-god hug. that is the first time he’s ever done anything like that. i was utterly amazed.
Beats the heck out of the yesterday morning I had with my dog.
I am visiting my parents in Dallas for a few days and I always bring Goliath with me when I drive. My dad gets up early and I usually let Goliath out to be with dad and his 2 dogs. Dad let the dogs out for their morning wizz. I was still in bed as this was about 6:00 AM, but the dogs were chasing squirrels as dogs like to do. The barking eventually drove my stepmother nuts and she told me to get Goliath to shut up. I walk out side to see my sweet little puppy sitting in one spot under a tree. Right in front of him was a non-moving but heavily breathing squirrel. I wondered if Goliath had somehow made friends with the critter but as I looked closer I was reminded of Tennyson, “Nature, red in tooth and claw.” Goliath had blood on his paws and side of his mouth.
I took him inside and gave him a quick bath and then went to check on the rodent. Dad was heading out and offered to dispose of the body in a construction dumpster. I got to the squirrel and saw that it was still breathing heavily and I told him, “if you can move, now is the time”. He didn’t move so I gave him a nudge with the dust pan I was holding and it came back with a blood smear on it. I had no choice but to put the poor critter out of its misery. I have never killed anything other than fish or insects so I wasn’t too keen on this situation. It took some time but I realized that I had to end the suffering and conked the squirrel on the head with the dust pan and it stopped moving. I wanted to be sure so I conked the thing again and the little legs shot straight out – the international sign of a dead animal.
I put the corpse into a garbage bag and dad took it as he left for his meeting. I want to point out that dad drives a Rolls and not a pickup. The garbage bag was on the floor of the passenger side. I was informed that on the way to the “final resting place” that the squirrel wasn’t actually dead and started making noises in the bag. I guess dad got to a dumpster as fast as he could and ditched the still quite alive tree rat.
My Wife gets up first and furfaceONE gets off the bed. FurfaceTWO comes over to me to snuggle. When my Wife gets out of the shower, furfaceTWO gets off the bed.
At this point, both dogs get fed and furfaceONE comes up on the bed for her turn to snuggle a few minutes before I have to get up.
Or the time my Wife was visiting her brother and was sleeping in the rec-room. It had a small bed and a pool table. With no dressers available, my Wife laid her clothes out on the pool table.
Well, when we travel, our dogs know that we will always come back for our luggage and clothes. So, furfaceONE started sleeping on my Wifes clothes on the pool table.
Aww, man, mine, too. “Here, let me decorate this with fur for my human. That way she can enjoy my fur as much as much as I enjoy her smell.”
In the evenings, during tv-watching time, the cats do a round-robin. Two humans, 3 cats, any number of combinations of cat/human snuggling. (I could do the math, but I don’t have time.)
the greenwing macaw isn’t invited, altho she’s big and bad enough to carve out however much of the bed she’d want - if she were.