My family recently welcomed a new dog, Dudley to our fold.
Dudley is a Cocker Spaniel for whom the term "hung dog look" could have originated.
To all apart from the short-sighted, he is ugly. However, Dudley's sole demand on those around is straightforward - "love me, love me, love me" demonstrated by constant licks, barks and presented paws.
All previous rules of our house (such as Dogs must stay downstairs) were immediately ignored by Dudley on entering our house given his all consuming "Love me" requirement. And we would fulfil this need. And at the end of the day, my wife and I would kiss both our children and Dudley before we went to bed and the snoring commenced.
All would be well until the early hours when our room become the scene of urgent padding of paws as Dudley did his rounds in search of love. The key was always to remain quite as he sniffed you carefully before concluding that there was no love to be had and going to my wife to do the same.
When it came to the end of the night, it became clear that Dudley like ourselves has a very good sense of time. He is always aware when the alarm is about to go off, pre-empting it by jumping on the bed and burrowing under the duvet on my wife's side of the bed, which she would allow to shut him up.
Early mornings therefore became times where I would turn sleepily to cuddle my wife to be greeted by a wet nose, the slow licking of my hand and breath suggesting she had been drinking out of the toilet again.
I was surprised at first but applying the principle "variety is the spice of life" reached my arm around her waist to discover the layer of fur that had joined her since the night before. The level of shock led to a rude awakening but soon we learnt to displace the dog to enable the cuddle to commence. The dog saw this as a game, and took to separating us, nuzzling us apart and generally placing himself in such a position that he was in the middle of things and we better believe it.
It was on one of these occasions that my wife declared the timeless words "I think I am holding Dudley's testicles".
I quickly confirmed that they were not mine in case she was confused. The yuck factor had however taken hold rendering it entirely inappropriate to present my own as some form of compensation.
Aware we were making a rod for our own backs, Dudley has been consigned to the hall at night, a move which led to some light howling, now settled into gentle but persistent wining in the mornings.
This is only silenced when I let him upstairs and he bounds up to the bedroom to leap on our bed filling the space I had recently vacated next to my wife. This normally causes her to leap out of bed to escape his affections in the same way she does to me on most Saturday mornings. The smell of the bed is however overwhelming to Dudley and he remains on her side of the bed, either asleep or writhing on his back, groaning rhythmically as if participating in a Doggie Porno film.
Overall, everyone is a lot happier. Dudley is calmer, knowing his place in the family. And most importantly, there is only one pair of testicles in our bed every morning.