One of the things I like most about this web site is that it makes me feel that Bear is a bit more normal than I would have given him credit for before finding this wonderful site. Every sense the first day we brought him home we have thought of him as our little weirdo and have loved him all the more for his eccentricities. But, as I look through the photos and see that he is not the only dog that likes to sleep flat on his back or with his hind legs sticking straight backwards or read accounts of how other Corgis don't seem to like other dogs it makes me think that just maybe he is not such a little weirdo. However, there is one thing that he does that I have not ever heard or read of from any other, he guards me when I am asleep.
I think this behavour started about four years ago when Tammey started traveling over the road with me. Very often when I am driving for long periods of time Tammey will go into the sleeper and go to sleep. And, as we are almost always in a hurry, to save time when I make a rest stop I will tell Bear to "Wake Mama up" when I get close to a rest area or truck stop. He runs into the sleeper and pounces up on the bed and barks and kisses her awake.
She loves it! That cold wet nose in her face and those little stumpy legs stomping around on top of her has become about the only sure fire way to get her out of bed. And, Bear loves waking her up. It is one of only a very few things that I only have to tell him once to do that he does. And it does not matter if we are in the truck a hotel room or here at home he leaps at the chance to wake her up. I can be out working in the garden and tell him to "Go Wake Mama up" and he will run around the house through the kitchen down the hall and into the bedroom and wake her up. Now, here is the twist. He won't wake me up for her.
If she tells him to wake me up he will jump up on top of me and bark at her! It has the same effect, I wake up, but it is a very differant thing. It is hard to sleep with a snarling barking dog stomping around with his stubby little legs on top of you. You would had to have had one wild night to sleep through that. But there is no dought he is very aggressively trying to make her leave me alone. I like to believe that he really cares that I get my rest so he runs up and down my body screaming (in corgispeak) "No No Let Him Rest!"
Tammey doesn't like it but I am up first most of the time anyway. I have trained myself to sleep on my stomach because Bear seems to get his best footing when he is standing on my bladder. We don't take it to serious. He is a good little waker upper ether way, we were just wondering if anyone else's dog acted like him.