Dogs vs. The Furniture

     Ah, the eternal struggle of canine vs. furniture.  The passion, the daring, the stains, the slobber marks, can such an intense conflict ever end?
     No, no it can't.
     Rightly or wrongly, I tend to view my dogs as part of the family.  They live here, this is their home and they should be comfortable in it.  I am not the type of owner to relegate them to the backyard, the basement, the kitchen, or a crate.
     Nivek has never been a furniture lover and despite the presence of three large and rather expensive dogs beds, he prefers the middle of the hard, cold kitchen floor even in the middle of winter.  I do not question this.
     Thankfully, Nuka is too large to fit comfortably on most of the furniture, so she doesn't bother trying, except for my bed, of course, my king size wonder-bed of awesomeness.  In the beginning, I didn't mind this too much.  Seeka was always a bed sleeper and it never really bothered me too much if my dog wanted to sleep on my bed during the day when I'm not in it anyway.

Gee, I hope he's comfortable!

     Then Duke came.

     Turns out, the little guy loves furniture.  He loves the bed, the couch upstairs, the couch downstairs, the green chair and basically anything he can squish his rotund little body onto.  Now, none of my furniture is particularly spectacular, so I wasn't too concerned about this, at first.  Once I realized how dirty he was getting my living room sofa, I was somewhat more concerned, and then, it happened.  A most horrible event, almost too shocking to mention, Duke peed, Duke peed on the bed, on my precious bed.

     Because I am very, very stupid, I forgave this incident, but after the second Duke-peeing-on-my-bed incident, a new rule was instituted - bedroom door closed at all times.

Bed? What bed, we're not on the bed!

     By default, this worked.  Of course, it also had the simultaneous effect of pissing off Nuka, who to this day sleeps forlornly in a ball outside of the bedroom door.  Keeping Duke off of the other furniture proved a lot more challenging.  Putting a dog bed in the basement keeps him off of that couch, but the living room couch, oh, the poor living room couch has suffered the worst.  The hundred dollar cushion will never be the same.

     Part of the problem, you can no doubt see, is the lack of enforcement the new rules are getting.  The problem with Duke is that it is very difficult to be stern with him, and I am not the only one with this issue.  Those large, brown, soulful eyes, so void of intelligence, that sweet, sad, hang-dog face and that pathetic little tail, whipping around between his legs when you give him trouble, it's almost too much to take.

     So take stock of your pitiful appearance, my little friend, so far it has served you very well.





Thanks for enforcing the rules, Dad, I appreciate that.