Keeping a foster dog (or puppy) off your couch
When a dog is used to being on a couch, this can be a challenge
In my early Rover days, I was stunned by the amount of dogs I kept running into who were on their owners’ furniture. I’d sit down, and the dog would leap up next to me. One even decided my lap was his destination. I thought it was cute, but it was foreign territory for me.
With my Labrador mix of 13 years and my German Shepherd of nine years, my parents had a no-dogs-on-furniture policy, partially because they were worried about a fur-covered couch and then there was the dog smell. Even their dog toys were left in the basement. That didn’t stop 10-year-old me from snapping photographs of my Lab mix, rolled in my comforter like a burrito, when they weren’t home. I made sure that dog was completely off the bed (fur included) before anyone could catch me though.
I can only speak from my own experience, but in predominantly black households, hopping on the furniture was a no-go. In predominantly white households, I’d see the dog roaming all over the place — from the window sill to the pillow case. In one of my first dogsitting jobs, I watched a Louisiana Catahoula Leopard dog turn in circles over and over again, scratching the couch pillows and seats, making herself comfortable. I laughed, thinking of my grandfather’s horrified reaction if he saw a dog doing that same thing on his white leather couch. (My grandmother had a dog once upon a time, but I only ever saw it in the backyard.)
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When you’re in someone else’s household and the dog is used to being all over the furniture, it’s much harder to pull rank. So I shrugged, grabbed my laptop and sat next to the dog while I worked. I smirked when the dog shifted her entire body toward me, creating a breathing couch pillow. That dog would nap for a couple hours, wake up and then slap my keyboard to get me to pet her. Bossy! I realized I kinda liked it. When that same dog followed me to bed and flopped on top of my feet, it was the most amazing leg warmer.
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Right at that moment, my first thought was, “I’m joining white people with this. The dog stays!” And with every single dog I dogsat after that, I was totally fine (minus the one who attacked a skunk and slept underneath the bed) with the dog tagging along wherever I went.
But when I adopted my own dog, I did have one rule: She could hang out on all the couches, but she would not sleep in my bed. I have cleaned more than enough dog fur in my childhood home basement and vacuumed the floors. I had zero desire to do it where I slept. But my parents, the same people who banned dogs from the furniture and the bed, got a new dog. And to my absolute surprise, their dog was sleeping with them or on top of the headboard like Snoopy.
Well, well, well, how quickly they forgot their own rules! And this made it that much harder for me when their dog wanted to sleep in my childhood bed and my own dog gawked at her snuggled beside me. How was I going to explain to my own dog that there’s a no-furniture rule at home when another dog is clearly defying those rules?