You can see that your dog is tired. His eyes are getting heavy. He’s been yawning. He lies down, gets back up, carries a toy across the room, drops it, circles the rug, and tries another spot.…
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.…
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.…
Side sleeping is one of the easiest ways for a dog to let the bed do the work.
Instead of holding the legs beneath the body or keeping the chest upright, your dog can stretch out, let the shoulder and hip sink into the surface, and allow a broad stretch of muscle to relax.…
Snoring is basically a vibration. As air moves through the upper airway during sleep, relaxed tissues in the nose and throat can flutter. The narrower or more changeable that passage becomes, the easier it is for ordinary breathing to turn into a snuffle, rumble, or surprisingly impressive little chainsaw.…
A quiet dog isn’t necessarily a calm dog.
That distinction matters most after a lot has just happened. Maybe visitors have been in the house for two hours. Your dog greeted everyone, followed people between rooms, investigated bags and shoes, reacted to the doorbell, and eventually disappeared to the edge of the room.…