Family pet just wants a good bed

Nature girl has gone domestic.

Bailey is keeping house in her bed.

The Easter bunny brought her a house-shaped tent that fits over her mattress. It has plastic windows and tent flaps that serve as a door to her sleeping abode.

Inside, her stuffed animals stand guard against any unwelcome intruder. There's little room for anything else.

Joni and I have to stick our heads into the tent just to say goodnight to our youngest child.

The tent actually sits atop two mattresses, which makes our 7-year-old think she's on top of the world or at least her corner of the world. If it was any higher she'd need a ladder to reach it.

The latest tent replaces a more traditional tent that recently occupied the middle of her room and left little room for people to maneuver.

Becca, on the other hand, is too busy trying to look fashionable to worry about keeping house. If our 11-year-old were redesigning her bed, she'd have racks of new clothes hanging above it.

Our dog, Cassie, could care less about such fashion statements. She just wants a good bed to rest on.

That often is our bed. Joni doesn't mind, but then she grew up in a Dr. Doolittle type home which could have doubled as a petting zoo. I still find it hard to share my bed with Cassie. She has a way of collapsing on my legs in the middle of the night or locating herself right up against my back. I end up waking up and relocating her to Joni's side of the bed or I physically remove our canine pal from the bed entirely and put her on her doggie bed.

Unfortunately, she prefers sleeping with us. I'm certain she thinks of herself as more human than canine.

With any luck, she'll soon learn that Saturday mornings are meant for sleeping in, not getting up at the crack of dawn like some rooster.

I'm thinking that perhaps Joni and I need to invest in a large house-shaped tent to fit over our bed. With the canvas flaps closed, it would be practically dog proof.

They say dogs are man's best friends. The truth is that dogs just want to lead a comfortable life and they've learned there's more comfort around humans than out in the wild.

If Cassie is any judge, they also are good at begging for our food. Cassie is particularly fond of French fries, but she'll eat almost any scrap of food.

I can't blame her. Her dog food doesn't look too inspiring to me.

One advantage of having a dog is that he or she can fertilize your lawn. People without pets have to spend their hard-earned money for such a benefit.

But even with Cassie's help, our front yard still has more weeds than grass. Still, even the weeds look healthier than in past years. A little fertilizer can go a long way.

As for this bed thing, I'm still working to convince Cassie of the merits of her fluffy doggie bed that Joni recently bought her. Maybe I should put a tent over it like Bailey's.

But somehow I doubt she'll settle for it. Maybe she just prefers to hear me snore.

There's a saying that you made your bed, you lie in it. Trouble is, Cassie never makes the bed.

Mark Bliss is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.