I'M WITH YOU! When we brought Bailey home, she was three months old. Still a wonderful yippy-yappy armful, and I indulged myself with hugging and snuggling on the floor and (against my husband's say so...) at first on my chest as I lay on the bed...and then, you know, one foot on the bed and then laying beside me and then bed hogging and kicking my husband out, and now...Now, I can't sleep without her. I Love Sleeping With My Mastiff! If we had a larger master bedroom that would accommodate a king-sized bed, all three of us would happily sleep together. Well...not quite true. Jon would have to come and join us after his movie-fest in the next room. Jon's a night owl and movie freak and I'm not. So the dog, who will happily go to bed when mom wants, she's the one that shares the bed with me.
Now there are times when Jon and I want to watch something together in the early evening or early morning (I PVR all the talk shows) and we all three squeeze into a double bed. The 130 lb princess knows that her place is third...Mommy is Alpha, Daddy is the 2 I/C and She's the Princess. Both my husband and my Mastiff snore, but...truth to tell, her snoring is so cute and puts me to sleep...Jon's snoring is nasty and disruptive (even he knows this!) He also kicks like a mule! Whereas Bailey just runs in her sleep and sometimes whimpers and on the odd occasion she has what seems to be a nightmare, BUT, Mommy is there to make it all better.
All of our family dogs have been allowed to sleep with us though some proportion of them would come up for a snuggle and then disappear under the bed or out into the living room where it was cooler. Bailey HATED her crate...and no amount of deep comfortable cushions would change her mind. Three feet away from me was too much for her. I don't miss the bulky crate in my bedroom, but I would miss the Mastiff in my bed. I love her "snor-full-ing" that's what I call the snoring/snuffling/grunting noise she makes when we roll over or come back to bed, it's delightful!
As for the mess? Come on...humans are messy (woman's perspective) and dogs they are too. I wash the sheets once a week...so, I also wash the comforter...big deal. The bigger deal for me is when she steals the sheets. I still don't know how she does it, but when I come back from the bathroom, I invariably have not enough sheets or blankets to cover myself. Grrr! But when told to move, she does and I climb back in and go to sleep.
And this morning....ah....such happiness.... I got to sleep in after a particularly arduous day at work and when I woke up, Bailey had crawled up almost to my face and was pressed into me for warmth. She did the snorfulling noise as I curled around her and she welcomed the light coverlet that I threw over her. It had been a cold night and the house was quite cool. We stayed snuggled up for about an hour, and, for me, it was a magical time with my girl; half in and out of sleep, snorfulling every now and then as I caressed her. So much in the world is wrong and ugly, but snuggling with my girl starts my day off right. I suppose part of it is that I feel so very blessed to have her. We almost didn't get her. Life is good with a Mastiff, even a bed hogging one. Somehow it is just right.