Pocket Is Sleeping With a Bed Bully

Every night I am forced to go to bed with a big bed bully.

I am referring to my sister, River Song. Don't let her size fool you. She is a warthog in the sack. She bulls around the bed like an offensive lineman lumbering after a fumble. How can anyone get sleep with her is beyond me?
We both get placed in the bed before my parents get in. Once they are settled, Papa pays us back for all the good we accomplished that day by giving us scratches and rubs for up to a half hour. When I am sated, I lay down by Momma's waist.  River sits up getting her belly rubbed until she passes out where she stands.

My sleep position is under the covers next to Momma. River can lay wherever she likes as long as it is not my spot.  If she does, when Momma shuts out her light and lies down I have to go across Papa's legs, get to his side of the bed and rely on Papa's assistance to get to my snuggle spot under the covers.  If I go directly past River, she snaps at me. Bedtime can be stressful.

Papa stays up late reading. When he shuts out the light River wakes up like a slumbering bear. In the darkness, she begins to navigate across the bed. Each step feels like someone dropped a bowling ball on the mattress.  Occasionally, like a drunken patron trying to order one more, River paws Papa hoping for a belly rub. Denied, she collapses against one of my parents, like a sack of nickles slamming into their side, then begins to loudly snore.

She will repeat her late-night excursions several times before morning.  Sometimes, instead of collapsing, she will sit near my parents’ heads and stare at them until they open an eye, the dog version of "ya up?" Other times she will because fascinated with a body part and loudly lick it until one of my barely conscious parents tell her to stop.
River pays no attention to where she is walking.  She steps on my head, my legs, and my stomach. If I have a dingleberry in my chute River stomping on my belly causes it to ejaculate prematurely, or, in the common vernacular have “poop dreams.” Mommy gets angry when she finds a dingleberry on the sheets in the morning.  I say to her “You lay in bed locked and loaded, have a moose step on you and see if you can keep your berries inside.”

Some mornings River will poke at Papa to make him get out of bed. He gets dressed, then, because I go out first,  gets me leashed and takes me out in the cold. When we get back, River is on his warm spot in bed with a big smile on her face.



River does love the bed.  I just wish she respected it and the others who used it as much as she likes it.