[Dailydrool] Waterbeds?

[Elizabeth Lindsey]

> I have been visiting my sister while on a business trip to  
> California. Yesterday, she and her husband purchased a new waterbed  
> after going some eight years with a conventional mattress. I  
> immediately had a visual of my little short and chunky Mary Myrtle  
> rolling around in a waterbed. My sistter and her husband had a  
> German Shepherd long ago who took up half their previous waterbed.  
> My question is, do any of the Droolers have waterbeds and how do  
> the houndies handle it?

The summer between my freshman and sophomore years in college my  
sister's friend hired me to house- and dogsit for her while she and  
her family were out of town for three months. Part of my job was to  
sleep on their waterbed with their four beagles and one lab mix. I  
will never share a waterbed with dogs again.

The beagles were retired hunting dogs who had lived outside most of  
their lives and thus were never housebroken. When their advancing age  
granted them indoor-dog status, they remained unhousebroken. The lab  
mix, who had always been an indoor dog and had been housebroken,  
appeared to have decided to forget her housetraining because if the  
beagles didn't have to be, then why should she make the effort?

The first night on the waterbed was miserable because I didn't turn  
on the heater. It was June in the Philadelphia area. Hot and humid.  
Turning on the heater seemed silly, given the weather. Plus, if I  
didn't turn the heater on, I'd save the family a little energy. What  
I didn't realize was the with the water in the bed constantly moving,  
my body heat was being swept away all night long. The bed was too  
cold and clammy even for a Philly summer. After that first night, I  
took to turning on the heater about 5pm so the bed would be warm by  
bedtime. (A year later I found myself doing an overnight babysitting  
gig elsewhere and sleeping on another waterbed. This couple left the  
heater on all the time to keep the bed at a constant temperature.  
Something to think about with a waterbed--what'll you do if the  
electricity goes out for any length of time, especially during colder  
months? That waterbed's going to be cold, even if you're covered in  
dogs.)

Back to the dogs. I was covered with them on that waterbed, their  
body heat being whisked away with mine that first night (so much for  
the warmth of a "three-dog night"). When dogs sleep, they partially  
wake many times during the night and reposition themselves. This  
often involves standing up and circling three or four times.  
Sometimes the dog needs to scratch at the covers before resettling.  
Every time a dog does this on a waterbed it sets off a series of  
waves and the whole bed moves. Another thing about dogs is that they  
do this repositioning at different times, never in unison. So all  
night long I was rocking away on that waterbed as one dog after  
another got up to reposition himself. Or to get up and go pee in the  
corner of the bedroom and then jump back up on the bed again, which  
created a really big wave with aftershocks.

I stuck it out for a month, and then offered my sister a third of my  
promised pay from this family if she'd sleep on that bed with those  
dogs for the other two months while I slept on a conventional  
mattress in one of the children's rooms. She jumped at the offer, but  
then again, my sister can sleep through anything.

To make all this basset related, that waterbed experience is a part  
of the reason I have our Elsinore and young Charlie sleep in crates  
in the back entry. I'm pretty protective of my sleep, and there's no  
way I'm going to get any if I'm being jostled all night long by two  
bassets repositioning themselves, pushing me toward the edge, and  
pulling the blankets off me. When the dogs sleep in their crates,  
then I'm a much more pleasant human for them to be around the next  
morning.

While some people accuse it of being like sleeping on wet sand, I'm  
very happy with my Tempurpedic mattress and with my hounds in their  
crates!

Elizabeth