My Dog No Longer Wants to Sleep In My Bed, What Should I Do?
Question:
My dog sleeps with my husband and I but lately he wants to get down when we go to bed and go somewhere else. Help what should we do?
Nikki
ANSWER:
Hi Nikki,
Most often, dogs that no longer want to be on the bed are hot and want to stretch out. Buy him a nice dog bed that fits him well and put it beside your bed. I am sure he will learn to sleep there happily all night long and in the winter, he will be back in bed with the two of you – mine always did!
Ann
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I have a shitzoo wired hair terrier mix and our niehgbors dog comes over a lot and my dog is in heat he’s a large dog will it kill her to have his pups?
Brittany,
Have your dog spayed immediately. No, it probably wouldn’t kill her to have his pups but it may require a C section. However, adding more puppies to a country that is already putting down 3 to 4 million unwanted pets a year is just plain wrong. Have her spayed immediately! If your pet says he would rather wait until the heat cycle is over, explain to him the problem and follow his advice – please!
Ann
Brittany,
Ann is dead on – spay your dog. There is absolutely no need for casual “backyard breeding” producing more puppies. There are more than enough mixed-breed puppies of every conceivable description populating the shelters as it is. Even if you committed yourself to finding good, loving, permanent homes for each of the resulting puppies (which you would be morally obligated to do, in my opinion), all you’d really be accomplishing is taking potential adopters out of the pool available to the shelters, and some other dogs would be needlessly slaughtered as a result. Note that the nice, fuzzy term “euthanasia” doesn’t really apply here, as we’re not talking about sick or injured, suffering animals in need of merciful death. We’re talking about the deaths of dogs whose only “crime” is being alive.
Here’s something else to think about, since you seem to be considering breeding: have you carefully and completely evaluated both dogs for breeding suitability, including thorough and objective behavioral assessment, complete medicals for inheritable conditions, and genetic screening? From the casual nature of your query, I’m guessing you have not done this. This should be considered mandatory before any deliberate breeding, and to skip this step is utterly irresponsible. There’s enough genetically and behaviorally inferior dogs coming out of the puppy mills as it is without adding backyard breeders to the mix. Puppy-milling and backyard-breeding aren’t even remotely comparable in terms of the cruelty perpetrated at the mills, but when it comes to actual breeding standards and practices, there not nearly so different.
If for some reason you don’t want to spay your dog, that’s ultimately your call, but if this is the case, you MUST keep your bitch from breeding. You already know she’s in heat so there is no such thing as an accident here, there’s only really stupid management failures. It never ceases to amaze me how may people I see brining their bitch-in-heat to the off leash park and then act all shocked and surprised when she gets knocked up (the question of intact males at the off leash park is a whole other discussion).
I’m sorry if I’m coming across too strongly here, but such is the nature of one-way communications on the ‘net when powerful topics are being discussed. You may well be a very kind and caring dog parent, but this whole backyard and casual breeding thing is taken WAY too lightly by WAY too many people thing, and I feel rather strongly about it!
Chris