Dog Behavior Explained 
Your dog is asleep beside your desk. Properly asleep, by the look of it. Head down. Breathing slow. Legs loose. You finish what you’re doing, push your chair back as quietly as possible, and stand.…
Some dogs seem to beat the alarm.
At 6:27 a.m., the bedroom is still quiet. The alarm won’t sound for another three minutes, but your dog has already lifted her head.…
Your dog has an entire room available to him. There’s a bed, a rug, maybe even the sofa.
And yet, at 9:40 in the morning, he squeezes himself into a narrow strip of sunlight on the office floor, leaving a perfectly good bed untouched a few feet away.…
You researched sizes. You compared foam thicknesses. Maybe you even debated whether your dog was more of a bolster-bed girl or a flat-mattress girl.
The carefully chosen bed arrives, looking soft enough for royalty.…
One dog starts the night curled into a soft bed beside the bedroom wall. A few hours later, he gets up, pads into the hallway, and stretches across the cool floor as though the bed has suddenly offended him.…
Your dog spends half the evening beside you. He follows you into the kitchen, supervises the making of tea, accepts a few scratches on the sofa, and seems perfectly happy with the arrangement.…
Dinner is over, the kitchen has gone quiet, and your dog lowers herself beside the doorway leading into the hall.
Is she guarding the entrance? Waiting for somebody to come through it?…
Night after night, your dog may climb onto the bed, walk past the pillows, circle once or twice, and settle near your feet. There may be plenty of other options: an open patch beside you, a dog bed on the floor, even the spot where she was snoozing earlier in the evening.…
A dog curls up beside you on the sofa, settles within easy petting distance, and then points her head toward the hallway. To a person, that turned back can look strangely deliberate.…
There is an entire bed available.
Your dog has considered this information and rejected it.
Instead, while you’re reading under the covers, she noses her way into the narrow space between your legs, turns around with the careful precision of someone parallel-parking a small car, and settles exactly where you can no longer move either knee.…