Breaks my heart....

It's winter, and our tiny little dog - even with all of his glorious fur - really likes to cuddle with us to stay warm.  At night, our heat kicks back to 58 degrees.  So while Murphy will gladly start the night in his dog bed, around 2 a.m. he decides that he needs to be somewhere warmer and he wants to jump up on our bed.

In his younger years, he would just jump up and snuggle.  Sometimes we would wake up, sometimes we wouldn't.  But he's 6 1/2 now, so when he wakes up in the middle of the night and wants to jump on our bed (which I should mention is pretty darn high) he can no longer get the strength together to make the massive jump.  It could be because he's old and just doesn't have the energy, or because he just woke up from about 4 hours of sleep and his muscles aren't warmed up.  Or it could be that his eyesight at night isn't as good anymore.  Or maybe it's because he's fallen off one too many times when trying to make this jump in the middle of the night.

Either way, the jump that he makes multiple times during the daylight hours is just no longer possible at night.

So what does this mean for us?

Well, for the past couple of months, when Murph decides he wants to come up, he puts his paw on the side of the bed and scratches.  Sometimes if Dave's arm is sticking out, he'll scratch that too.  But Dave isn't very good at waking up, and although he'll sometimes reach over and start petting Murph in his sleep, he never wakes up enough to do anything about it.  Sooooo... I get out of bed, walk around to the other side, pick Murphy up and put him on the bed.  Yes, that's right, I wake completely up in the middle of the night, nearly every night so that my dog can sleep with us.  If I don't, he'll just keep scratching.

Sometimes we would let him start out the night in our bed, because that way I wouldn't have to wake up later.  But that results in me sleeping poorly, since Murphy's favorite sleep spot when on our bed is right between my legs, which is not so comfortable for me.  And Dave doesn't like when he starts out in the dog bed, because then he's woken up when Murph starts scratching (although I regularly point out that he is still not the one really inconvenienced by this.)

So last Tuesday night, Dave did something bold.  Something that I did not agree with at all.

He made Murphy sleep in his crate.

Instead of a cute little dog bed, we now see THIS at the bottom of our bed

Some background details - you see, Murphy actually loves his crate.  It's got a nice L.L.Bean bed in it with a comfy fleece blanket.  It used to in our living room with a plant on it (as if the plant somehow made it look less like a crate.)  Most of the time the door to it is just open and Murphy comes and goes as he pleases.  It's his bedroom, except for at night when he sleeps in OUR bedroom, in a different bed that we have for him with a different fleece blanket.  He's got a good life.

Anyway, we only occasionally lock him in his crate.  We wanted to make it a "safe place" for him, not a place where he felt like he was being punished.  We were really successful with this, hence why he loves it so much.

AHHH! Just go ahead and break my heart already, why don't you!?!??! Lock up our "little one" at night.... I was so sad.

But, like they always say... "it hurts the mom more than it hurts the child."  Murph could care less about being locked up.  He's content as can be, and while I have a lot of guilt, it's true that both Dave and I have been sleeping better at night.  And after nearly a week of being locked up, last night we left the door open.... and he stayed there all night anyway!  Success!

The view from the floor

Are you tired of seeing pictures of my dog all of the time?  Well, sorry, but it's winter - there's nothing else to take pictures of.   It's just one more reason that winter needs to be gone. ForEVer.