Do You Allow Your Dog On The Bed? We Did… Then Didn’t… Now We Do Again

Subtitled: “Who Did We Buy Those Expensive Pillows For?!“

We recently invested in a new set of down pillows for our master bedroom.

Actually two sets of pillows — one King size and one Standard size.

These are some super-duper pillows, too!

They’re a premiere line of hotel-quality pillows from Hampton Inn. (And yes, they were expensive.)

The only thing is, sometimes I think our dog enjoys those pillows more than we do.

Okay, not really. We actually love our new Hampton Inn pillows.

But by the looks of these pictures, you can see that our dog thinks they’re the cat’s meow, as well!

Tenor (our dog) never used to spend much time on our bed. That is, until we got these pillows.

Now, he likes to prop his chin on one of the pillows while he’s watching TV.

Or lean up against one when he’s just hanging out.

And whenever he’s ready for a good snooze, he’ll hunker down and cozy right up to one or two of these pillows.

It’s the cutest thing.

Before we got these pillows, he would just make his space on top of the comforter on the bed:

Dogs On The Bed Dilemma

To all the dog owners out there…

I’ll be honest, there was a period of many many years when we didn’t allow any of our dogs to get up on our bed.

The reasoning was partly practical: we had 3 dogs at one point, and there wasn’t any room left for us. But mostly out of necessity: it’s a fact that dogs learn their place in the household from the cues you give them. If you allow them on your bed, it’s as if you’re saying, “You and me… we’re equals. You have a lot of rank in this house, dog.”

Which isn’t necessarily a problem with less-dominant dogs. But when you introduce a more dominant dog into the mix (like we did), if you still allow your dogs on your bed, then they’re getting mixed messages about who’s the boss and what their place is — in terms of rank and the dog pack hierarchy.

That’s why we made a point of keeping our dogs off our bed for several years.

But when we eventually got down to only one dog (a very submissive dog at that), this simply wasn’t an issue anymore. Plus, I have to admit — and as silly as it sounds — I think we missed the “cuddle time” with our dog.

If we should ever get another dog — meaning 2 dogs in the family once again — then I’m pretty sure we’d go back to “the no bed rule” with our dogs. Because we’ve learned firsthand how difficult it is dealing with dominance issues when you have more than one dog.

But I’m just glad our new Hampton Inn pillows are such a hit in our home. They were certainly worth every penny!

Now, just for laughs, here’s what one dog (who’s NOT allowed on the bed) does as soon as everyone leaves the house: