Cooper twitches in his sleep. Maybe he’s dreaming of running away from Lulu or something. His back legs have quite a kick when he’s sleeping and twitching.

Unfortunately, Cooper also likes to sleep beside my side of the bed with his back legs pointed at my nightstand.

This means that when he starts twitching, he also starts kicking my nightstand. This makes an awful racket and has been known to wake me up in the teeny hours of the morning. One night, he woke me 4 times.

I considered chasing him out of the bedroom but then he’ll spend the night patrolling the windows and barking his head off at burglars, cars, squirrels, leaves, etc.

I often try to turn Cooper around so that his non-kicking nose is pointed at my nightstand. It’s not easy though. He weighs 100 pounds. If he was Lulu’s size, then I’d pick him up, point him the right way and put him back down. As it is, I need his cooperation.

First I have to wake him up. He’s a pretty sound sleeper. If he wasn’t, he’d be waking himself up with this twitching nonsense. After calling his name several times and shaking him, his eyes will open and give me a puzzled look.

Then I have to get him to stand up. This means more shaking and calling his name. He’s not impressed with this either but he’ll eventually do it.

Then I tell Cooper “Down.” This gets me an expression that is somewhere between “Thank Dog!” and “Make up your mind.”

Like a lot of dogs, Cooper won’t just lie down. He has to circle a few times before he stops and lies down. This usually results in Cooper’s back legs pointed at my nightstand again. Which means that we have to do the whole thing all over again.

This would be easier if Pam didn’t shake the bed as she struggled to not to giggle at this.