By Steve Dovey

When we first adopted Kay we had, or more specifically I had, the idea our bed would be out of bounds to Kay, that it would be our place, the masters bed, forbidden territory for dogs. How naive that turned out to be. Kay now sleeps with us some nights, actually most nights…okay every night, unless It’s “married couples night” which come to think of it used to be most nights until we got Kay. Actually maybe I should retitle this article to “No sex please ; we have a Greyhound”, but there would not be much to write about, not anymore anyway.

Anyway unless it is one of those nights or we are just so physically and mentally exhausted from sharing our space with a King size bed hogging, 24” Greyhound that somehow defies all size to space ratio requirements, Kay sleeps with us. Not at the bottom of the bed I might add, that would be fine, in fact if that were the case I wouldn’t be writing this. No, Kay likes to sleep between us, smack bang in the middle of the bed ensuring safe distance between Laura and me with her head nestled nicely on a pillow or rested affectionately on one of us. Or, if we’re really lucky, she’ll turn around and give us the pleasure of her backside for the night.
“Kay is not allowed on our bed, maybe at Christmas, or her birthday, or maybe your birthday, or my birthday…”

Now I can hear what you’re saying or at least thinking, and I say it to myself too; “she’s a dog, kick her out of the bed or tell her to move”, and you’re absolutely right that’s exactly what we should do. Instead, resembling victims of a terrible car crash with faces squashed against walls, backs contorted and twisted, legs pulled up to eachothers chins and our bodies hanging awkwardly over the end of the bed with barely enough duvet to cover half a person, and there are two of us, three of you count Kay we all “share” a King Size bed.

You don’t need to feel bad though, because Kay is alright! Somehow, as only Kay knows how, she manages to amass the majority of the duvet, all the while laughing at our futile attempts to lay claim to even a small corner of the soft warm comforter while slowly, without care, sapping every last drop of body heat we have leaving us cold and shivering.

Sometimes, if I wake up in the middle of the night she’s there, eyes open, head rested on my pillow, staring at me. It’s a bit disconcerting, she doesn’t blink, she just stares and we lie there staring at each other before it all gets a bit awkward and I slowly close my eyes and go back to sleep.

It didn’t start out this way, in fact at first our bed was out of bounds, Kay slept on her own bed at the bottom of our bed and even spent nights on the sofa downstairs, we had space, we slept, we did “married couple’s things” all was right with the world. I don’t even know where it went wrong, It was probably the eyes, you know the stupid eyes thing Greyhounds do with those stupid big round eyes, staring at you with the eyes, and the ears thing they do and Kay has awesome ears, and she just looked so cute with those dopey eyes lulling us into a false sense of security.

“Oh, she just wants to be close to us.” “She loves us, look at her Steve”! Laura says in that childlike and caring way she does.

“Hmm, I don’t want to look, I’m scared, I don’t trust those eyes and the ears are freaky, I mean just look at them, that’s just not right.”
“But she does look a little sad and she’s only small so maybe we’ll try it for just one night?” I reply with some trepidation.

Boom…and that was it!

And now with sleep a precious commodity both of us deprived of rest and physical contact, suffering cognitive slowdown and aged well beyond our years we’re putting our foot down. No more will we suffer at the mercy of those big brown eyes, those possessed pointy ears and those long pokey spearlike legs inflicting pain and misery on our tired and weary bodies. No more will we lie down and endure the long cold nights of discomfort and separation. The humiliation and pain must stop. It’s time to make a stand…
It’s time to get a bigger bed!

Read more about Kay at http://www.kaysdays.com .