It has to be the strangest of ménages et trois and it’s costing me sleepless nights. For some weeks now, our pet dachshund has taken to creeping into our bed at night — though he has a perfectly respectable bed of his own — and claiming it as his own. It wouldn’t be so bad if he was willing to simply snuggle in, but his bed manners leave a lot to be desired.
There’s the question, for instance, of his snoring. For a dog so small, he puts up a pretty impressive performance, the orchestrated notes depending as much on his level of comfort as on his sense of security. It’s never nice to have a snoring partner in bed, but that is the lesser of my problems, for the breed comes with a short temper, and he’s apt to forget that as master of this house, he has no business to be snarling at me as he bares his fangs and sinks them into my arm.
At the onset of his middle age, or because of enforced celibacy, he’s becoming increasingly unreasonable — you can’t air his bed, or touch his toys, or take off his collar for a wash, without escaping a quick nip at the wrist. He guards his food bowl as though it’s in danger of disappearing into thin air. So much as touch his leash to take him for a walk and he’ll go grrr!
More recently, he’s started to inveigle his way into our bed — scratching at the door if you won’t let him in — but you’d think once he was under the quilt he’d keep his peace. But so much as turn and you’re likely to be growled at; if you’re even a little restless, you reserve the right to be served as hors d’oeuvres. Nor is he simply a dog in the manger: His bite is definitely worse than his bark.
Not that he’s averse to conversations. As long as we’re talking, he’s all right. We can hurl insults, or exchange intimacies, and he won’t turn a ear. We can gossip, read aloud passages from a journal, whoop at a sixer on television, or talk on the phone, and he’s perfectly contended, adding a snore or two to a postcard picture of domestic bliss. But so much as lay a hand on my wife and he’s quick to lose his equilibrium. Forget kissing her goodnight, I can’t so much as pass her a book, or remote, or give her a backrub, without offending his canine sensibilities and getting myself a quick nip in the bargain. Share a wine in bed, or chocolate, and it’s open war.
Sleeping without stirring till you’re stiff and aching is a feat, one I’ve nevertheless, but with a lot of practice, managed the art of, which, presumably, is when man’s faithful companion loses interest in us — or maybe he realises he’s run us out of steam to attempt getting up to anything fishy any more — and shifts his loyalties and his self to my daughter’s bed, thereby increasing the peril I’m routinely, and daily, exposed to.
My daughter isn’t a morning person and resents alarms, so it falls on me to wake her up every dawn, an exercise that is fraught with enticements as well as threats of violence, all of which — yes, you guessed it — the dog accepts with equanimity as long as it is only voiced. But when nothing but a nudge will wake her up, he’s ready to pounce on the offending hand with a snarl. Not that I’m averse to his being top dog — so long as he takes on the onerous task of waking up the household. I’m getting a little tired of beginning every day with the hand that feeds being bitten off in the bargain.
