Dear Jasper,

I often struggle at night to get enough room in the bed to stretch out my doggy limbs to their full length, it doesn’t help that both my owners keep insisting that they want equal shares too.

Sleepless Scruff x

Dear Scruff,
Firstly, lucky you being allowed to sleep on a human bed at all, Sal says just because I make downstairs smell like a swamp that I can’t have her bed. I have offered not to roll in anything nasty and to keep out of the real boggy parts of the beck but she still refuses to let me up the stairs and instead provides me with a very comfy ’Dirty Dog’ bed in the dining room.

But here’s how to help you.

Firstly choose an allegiance to one or other of the bed sharers, checking which side of the bed is their preferred side. Then when it comes to bedtime allow ample room for that person to get into bed comfortably and then reluctantly concede to share what is left with the other person.

Turn your back to the person you like so that they can snuggle into you, and then breathe very heavily on the person opposite you ( particularly effective if you have found something smelly to eat earlier in the day!)

If that doesn’t seem to have an effect the odd occasional lick to their face usually gets them to turn over and this is where you strike, stretch out your legs as far as they will go and pretend to go into full-on dreaming mode, whimpering and pretend running ( our owners love it, so won’t get cross!) Each time just move them a little further to the edge of the bed.

There are now two options, either go for the full on rabbit chase dream and push them actually out of bed or carry on with the silly noises and fake run, they will get so fed up of your whimpering and fidgeting they will go and sleep on the couch. Result!

Now you have a whole side to yourself, if you are a particularly big breed or don’t wish to wake up to morning human breath, repeat the above actions to the other person. But be warned, use this move with caution as it may have the opposite effect and you could end up downstairs yourself. Quite literally ‘in the dog house’.!

Love from Jasper x