Home Do you let your cat or dog on the furniture?

[Blenheim]

I''ll let the picture speak for itself. To put things in perspective, the laptop was on my lap, my legs were stretched out under the red blanket, and the photo was shot from just above my head.

At least we can leave the thermostat low and save on energy bills...

 

[doxielover]

Yep. We have 3 dachshunds and a rottweiller/doberman mix. One doxie and the rotterman sleep with us. The second doxie had a back injury so we leave him with the third doxie at night, for fear that he may jump down in the middle of the night and re-injure his back. They are allowed on the couches only when invited.

 

[sunnyd]

this always makes people laugh, so i will share. my parents have 2 saint bernards, a male and a female. combined they weigh 280 pounds. you better believe that they both sleep on the bed too!!! they''ve had the dogs for 4 years, and for the first 2, they slept in a full size bed. full size!!!

they finally upgraded to a king, but still. that''s like having 4 people in the bed. noone can understand how they''ve stayed married this whole time... hehehe.

when my dad comes back from being out of town, the male gets irritated because he has to share the bed again, instead of having his side to himself.

come to think of it, i don''t understand how they''ve stayed married either!!

 

[Odilia]

It''s been a long time but the dog we had growing up was an indoor/outdoor dog. Initially she was allowed more on the furniture, I think, but going outside she did used to get dirty, so mostly, she was not allowed on the sofas, etc., unless invited. However, there were two people, my aunt, and next-door neighbor, who, when they came to visit, she used to jump up on the sofa to be with them. We let her get away with it then; it was like an exception, and she was good about keeping it to few occasions like that. Plus, she did have a comfy armchair that was basically her bed, that she was always allowed on.

 

[rainbowtrout]

You can keep a cat OFF the furniture???

I try to keep mine off the counters, but the couch and the bed? Fugeddaboutit.

 

[Dreamer_D]

Date: 12/3/2007 3:54:45 PM
Author:goldenstar
I let my dog do whatever he wants, but I''m starting to think I shouldn''t. I''ve read that for behavioral reasons, dogs need boundaries and should sleep in their own beds. I''ve also read that dogs pick up germs from all over the place and deposit them on the furniture.

But there''s nothing I love more than cuddling with my doggy on the couch or bed. I don''t want to stop.

I voted "sort of..." We have two, two-year old miniature dachshunds, and they are allowed to go on the furniture whenever they like, but they are only allowed to go in our bed when we invite them, and they never sleep with us. I think that everyone sleeps better this way. The puppies have their own "bedroom" at the foot of our bed, which is a luxurious crate with a pillow in it, and they sleep in it together

. I know that many dog behaviorists recommend being the alpha dog in the house, and I definitely agree that being in charge is important. One of our dogs is fiesty, shall we say, and after watching the Dog Whisperer a whole bunch we started being more calm-assertive with him and we noticed a big difference with him, he seems to listen much better. But we decided to pick our battles and so we don''t care if they jump on the furniture and we don''t care is Seamus walks ahead of us on walks. Dreamer is more submissive and walks by our sides naturally.

But there are some other boundaries that seem to be important for keeping them well behaved in the house: they can''t go upstairs unless we are up there too, they aren''t allowed to bark at dogs/people going by outside the windows (though they do love to sit in the window and watch the people go by), and if people knock on the door they are only allowed to bark once (Dreamer hasn''t gotten the hang of this one yet but she is more nervous and likes to warm us about "stranger danger"), they stay in the kitchen when we are not home (we have baby gates to keep them in there and they have a dog bed in there and toys. This keeps them safe when we are away and stops them from getting into trouble), they aren''t allowed to jump up on people/us/visitors--unless invited--and they always have to sit and be a good boy and girl before we feed them. etc. etc. These are pretty simple rules and we find that by being consistent with them and by following through when we discipline them, then they are generally really well-behaved (e.g., if Seamus tries to run upstairs and we say "Hey!" and point at him and give him the "stink eye," meaning he is doing something that is not allowed, then if he ignores us we go get him and bring him back down. We only had to do this one or two times before he got the picture that he had no choice about doing what we wanted him to do!).

Of course, our dogs are also our fur-babies, so we also spoil them rotten and give them way too much attention

 

[Dreamer_D]

This is how my dogs would prefer to sleep if they could! That''s my husband''s legs...

 

[Linda W]

That picture is absolutely precious.!!!

Linda

 

[goldenstar]

I love the pics in this thread.

This is my little boy on the dining room chair. He likes to sleep in the sun.