I have one cat and one dog. The dog is of average size, weighing in at roughly 60 pounds. The cat is large, verging on extra-large, weighing in at a hefty 18 pounds. Both of them insist on sleeping on the bed with me. Today, I decided to illustrate why it is that I never get a decent night’s sleep.

This is an illustration of my queen size bed at 11pm on an average work night when we go to sleep. The dog sleeps on my left, the cat is on my right. This hardly ever changes. For some reason, both the cat and the dog always sleep with their butts facing me, and they both have to be touching me at all times.

I have between a foot to a foot and a half of room between cat and dog, so I have to lie somewhat diagonally to fit. That’s not really enough space. I usually end up with the dog’s legs resting on top of mine, which is fine until she starts dreaming and the legs start moving like she’s running:

At this point, I usually turn on my side. The cat adjust himself so he is on top of my feet, which is nice in the winter, but really sucks in the summer. The dog wakes up and stops with the foot twitching for a minute, but she soon starts dreaming again and comes the added benefit of a dream growl every now and again, and sometimes an outright dream bark. She is kicking my knees now.

I roll over to my other side. The cat adjust again so I can’t move my feet and the dog moves closer to the center of the bed, so that now she’s kicking me in the butt.

I try to put one leg on one side of the cat and one on the other to give the dog-ward leg more room, but the cat always seems to lie at an awkward angle, so my legs are way too far apart for comfort, like I’m doing hurdles in my sleep. That doesn’t last long.

Sometimes, around 4 or 5am, I wake up to find myself completely disenfranchised from my spot with a leg or two hanging off the side of the bed. I counter-attack, even if it means bodily moving the animals.

Somehow, in this mess, I manage to get about three or four hours of solid sleep only to wake up nearly every morning to find this:

The dog knows that she’s not allowed to sleep on top of me, but she also knows that I’m asleep and in no condition to yell at her, so I wake up most mornings with a dog head resting on my own. Fortunately, she’s not a drooler. I just can’t win. I need a bigger bed.