Have you ever watched your dog sleep? The way they curl up in a tight ball tucking their nose under their hind leg and wrapping their tail on top of that to ward off the chill. Or when they get too hot and roll over on their back and splay their back legs out to cool off. You can tell a lot about a dog’s life just by watching the way they sleep.
A dog that has been abused or abandoned sleeps very lightly sometimes laying on their stomachs front legs bent jutting out between their head and rear legs tucked under ready to leap up for fight or flight. It takes a long time for a dog that has had a rough life to relax and begin to trust that danger is not waiting just around the corner.
Our dogs, Charlie and Orso, are the poster dogs for living the good life. We got Charlie at the young age of ten weeks and has never know anything but pamperhood. We rescued Orso at nine months from a young man that couldn’t keep him any longer. Charlie is now nine years old and Orso is seven and a half years old so I have had lots of time viewing their sleeping habits.
Charlie snores, and very loudly for a seventy pound dog, louder than Mitch sometimes. Orso breathes heavy, sometimes he works up a snore but nothing like Charlie. Charlie sleeps so deeply his eyes are closed tight and lays stretched out taking up as much real estate as his little body can. He juts out his legs straight away from his body and at times they are limp and relaxed and other times his legs are stiff as boards, earning him the nickname “Rigor” for rigor mortis. Which is especially fun at night when he is sleeping next to you pushing against you with those stiff legs. Yes we are those weak people that let their dogs sleep with us. We lost that battle years ago.
Orso at one hundred pounds takes up a bit space when he stretches out and gets even heavier when he lays his head on your legs sound asleep. You will not easily escape the dead weight of a dog that is so sound asleep. His eyes roll up in the back of his head when he is sound asleep. He looks like a big brown speed bump when he stretches out to his full fifty-three inch long tip of his nose to the end of tail body.
Both dogs dream and it is a hoot to watch them deep in throes of R.E.M. Charlie’s eyes roll back and forth under his eyelids. Sometimes he squeaks and sometimes he growls, I guess it depends on what he’s dreaming about and who he’s chasing. It usually starts at his front legs with a slight twitch, then growing stronger adding his back legs, then his legs run at break neck speed chasing whatever it is he is after.
Orso does it a bit differently from Charlie, his back legs jerk first, not a mere twitch, oh no, a full on jerk and you don’t want to be anywhere close when he start jerking those legs, he has left marks. Then he moves up to his front legs and then in concert Orso’s legs run in tandem after the unseen target. His eyes roll back and forth and his lips twitch sometimes working up a growl or moan.
I’m telling you watching a dog sleep is better than the reality TV shows on cable.
A woman's view of hunting...with men 
guilty of being weak, as well. the cats have slept with us from the first day we brought them home.
We did too with Charlie. Mitch thought that maybe he would stop crying and it worked, as long as he slept with us. Orso just figured that if Charlie was in bed with us then he needed to be there too.
‘Pamperhood’ – love it! I’ve managed to avoid dogs in bed – maybe because the last two I’ve had shed a LOT. And, of course, the bed belongs to the cats. I woke up this morning with both of them being squished against my left side by my arm. They love it, weirdos. The dog has a nice big bed in our room and always comes up with the last human to go to bed – and she stays there all night. If she ever gets up, we know something is wrong!
Well cats are just like dogs, maybe more so when it comes to cuddling up with us. If we had cats too there would be no room for us.
My cat, Dude (which was my nickname in my half-horse town), had an alpha male complex. He liked to sleep in a position where he would keep watch over me. Annoying habit of acting as if were leading the way.
I love to watch our dogs sleep. Spirit sleeps with her eyes open. She just started doing this in the last year.Georgia sleeps so soundly that we have to shake her gently awake for breakfast. And Riley,the youngest, would sleep all day if we let him!! Lol
Riley sounds like he’s still a baby. That makes us pet geeks, but I can’t think of a better geek out there.
He is the baby of the group :-). I also think he figures that since he got his Master Hunter last year that he deserves the rest! Lol I’m definitely a pet geek!!