Two dog night

Doug is out of town on business this week, which always means I don't sleep as well. In addition, I'm under a deadline on my thesis and am stressed. The girl who might have 1 Diet Dr. Pepper every day or two had 5 yesterday. And we are waiting to hear whether Doug's contract will be extended beyond the end of this month. It's no wonder I didn't sleep well last night.

But it was more than that. Normally the dogs aren't supposed to sleep on the bed. That doesn't stop them, but they usually sleep on Doug's side of the bed, well away from mom and her tendency to kick, push and shove until they get off the bed. In their quest for the right side of the bed, they tend to nudge Doug to the very edge of the bed. Often the only place for his feet is hanging off the bed.

Last night the dogs took it upon themselves to cuddle with me and make me feel better when I went to bed. Dante laid on Doug's pillow, propping himself up like a king. After awhile he stretched out and started pushing against me. Allegra, on the other hand, curled up at my hip. As the night wore on, she too stretched out. When I got out of bed to turn on the fan to cool down the room a bit, I noticed that instead of having the run of a king-sized bed, I had a small sliver, towards the edge.

At this point I decided that I would push, shove and make life generally miserable to get some space back. Usually it's just a shove or two and the dogs get annoyed enough that they'll opt for their mat on the floor. But last night Allegra decided she was going to hold her ground. She stretched out in the middle of the bed and was not going to move, no matter how much I pushed and prodded. Her 51 lbs. felt like it could have been 151 lbs. At one point I even used her to prop up my leg and still didn't get a response. I could doze off for an hour, but as soon as I rolled over to get more comfortable, there she was, blocking my movements and in the process, waking from my sleep. A knee in the back didn't work -- it was like resistance training. She was smart enough to stay in the middle of the bed because at the foot of the bed she would have had a foot in her ribs. At one point in this wrestling match I started thinking that something was wrong as she absolutely wasn't moving. Then I felt her breathing as I propped my knee across her chest.

Two nights down, two more to go before Doug returns. I think I will have to forego the cuddling in hopes of better sleep.