The dog, Güenther, loves the comfort of our king size Stearns and Foster mattress. I don’t blame him, I love the thing too! The first 5 years of Melissa’s and my marriage, we had a full size mattress with a nice bow in the middle… so we were sure to be very close together by morning. Every morning.

I’d better be careful before it sounds like I’m complaining.

So the dog loves the mattress. Well, while we can certainly understand… my wife and I have decided that the only furry creature (besides my currently unshaven self) allowed on the bed is the cat, because while Güenther may be small enough now to comfortably lounge on the bed with us at night, it will not be long before this four legged ritalin sniffer takes up the entire thing, and GAWD is this dog busy! All night long scratching, biting, and trying to get get comfortable while slapping me in the face with either his nose or his paws!

Anyhow… I work from home. I work all day long with these animals… (hey… not much different from most folks I don’t guess!) so they mostly keep me company here all day, and aside from the regular walk outside (probably as good for me and my chair as it is for the dog), and the occasional glance around the house to make sure nothing is broken / missing / eaten… they are not really that much of a distraction.

I just can’t keep the dog off the bed!

Let me explain my routine:

7am – Melissa is up already now for at least an hour, and has fed Güenther and taken him outside by now. I am usually just getting up as she is leaving (I normally stay up very late), and will get some breakfast and coffee. The dog amuses himself with the cat, his own tail, or the myriad of toys we’ve bought him to eat.

8am – My work-day really begins, usually by checking email.

9am – I get the dog and I together for a walk

9:15am – Back to work for me… back to play for the dog.

10am – things are awful quiet… wonder where the dog is?

10:05am – “OFF!”

10:05:05am – Güenther stares at me, ambivalent. The cat watches on from the far corner of the bed.

10:05:10am – “Güenther, get OFF!”

10:05:12am – The dog puts both paws on the edge of the mattress, puts his ass in the air and just looks at me, as if to ask… ‘You really meant the cat, right?’.

10:05:15am - “OFF! NOW!”

By now, the dog is slowly stretching and making his way out the bedroom door, usually to his crate which sits just outside of our bedroom. I will close the bedroom door, leaving the cat in the room comfortably stretched out on the bed… alone.

10:06 – back to work…

now… somewhere around

11:30am, i’ll poke my head out of my office door, and the dog will usually be in his crate. Sometimes though, I’ll see his little gray head and yellow eyes peering out from … you guessed it… our comforter on our bed. The same bed I kicked him off not much more than an hour before.

See… this is where the cat comes in. The dog doesn’t know how to open the door…. but Rusty on the other hand… he’s smart enough to know how to get in (and obviously out) of our bedroom when he wants to.

So this process continues through the entire day. I am yelling for Güenther to get off the bed at a minimum of 5 times a day, and no matter how often I close the door… Rusty will inevitably open it for himself, and consequently… the dog. And this dance is identical every time… down to the looks that the dog gives me, the glances towards the cat, the glances from the cat… it’s like a game to them I think, and I’m convinced that they’re playing it together against us.

As I type this from my office on the other side of the house, I can clearly hear my wife in the bedroom… ‘OFF!’