The days of cuddling have come to an end

When our puppy Annabelle was still very small, right after we first got her, she slept next to our bed in her very own puppy sized dog bed. We didn't have to do much to keep her out of our bed because she wasn't even tall enough to climb up into it, but it wasn't very long before our weak moral values kicked in and could you resist this face? I thought not.

So we caved and we let her sleep with us and this is when the cuddling began. It turns out that champion dog cuddling is a forte of Mr. E's and he and Annabelle spent many hours spooning innapropriately together and cuddling and giving each other doggy kisses.



Often times during these lovely cuddling sessions of theirs I woke up with puppy legs and claws poking me in the back and after it became apparent that our dog was at least half goat I couldn't help but notice that her long skinny legs were taking up more and more room in the bed formerly known as mine and I wasn't really enjoying being shoved over to the edge of a the bed by half a goat and her best friend, my husband.

So eventually we really got tough on little lady belle and she had to start out the night in her cage, but sometimes Mr. E would let her out in the morning and then you know, there would be more cuddling. As long as I wasn't getting awoken with a morning full of crusty bearded dog kisses I didn't really care, and lately since Mr. E has a job and I don't he wakes up at some ungodly hour and lets the dog out to do her doggy business and then he lets her back into our room and then she's allowed to climb in bed with me where we snooze away the morning hours together. She likes to try to sleep on me but remember, I'm a hard ass, and I certainly don't allow anything like that to go on.

This morning cuddling arrangement was working out fine except for the fact that she didn't understand that her bed hours were really restricted to the hours between 5 am and 10 am and that also our bed wasn't a trampoline and that I also don't really love changing sheets every two hours even though she does love covering them with her muddy puppy paw prints. But you know, I thought maybe this was just the price one paid for the puppy cuddling. I know she loved it because she did her patented puppy sighs of contentment whenever she really settled down to snooze and I know I loved it because every time I'd find myself with puppy breath blowing hot in my ear I would think to myself "You know, happiness really is a warm puppy."

But then last night I heard Mr. E doing his patented bad dog yelling (which often makes me laugh, I won't lie, and I think it might have the same affect on Annabelle) and when I asked from the other room if the dog badness involved anything of mine, it was with a sinking heart that I ran into the room and saw that Belle had been chewing a blue ink pen in our bed and there was now blue ink all over the sheets, the pillows, the quilt my dead grandmother made by hand and the velvet patchwork quilt someone gave us for our wedding.

And that was the moment Annabelle's days of cuddling came to an end.

Of course she will still get to do her share of spooning and happy sighing with us on the couch, I'm not made of stone here, people. And let's be honest, the baby was pretty much going to ruin her life and kick her out of our bed in about six months anyway, so she might as well find out now that life is hard and cuddles don't come easy.

I'm pretty sure I won't miss dirty dog feet poking me in the back every morning but I am certain I will miss the happiness that only a warm puppy can bring.