We have a 2-paw rule for Lucy. If she really wants to cuddle on the couch, she'll climb on my husband's lap because she knows she's not supposed to be on couch. Pepper has never tried to get up on the couch so it's not really an issue with her. If I really wanna cuddle with one of them, I'll just lay next to them on the floor. I love my dogs, but it's much easier to get the dog hair off my clothes than it is to get their stink off my couch.
If you have old couches your living room will always look dirty. We personally use a vacuum cleaner with upholstery attachment about once a week (or more if people are coming over) to keep the couch clean. It adds roughly 5 minutes to the normal cleaning time.
I bought new couches last year when I bought this house. They're fabric, because I HATE leather. Really, how is leather comfortable to lay on? You either stick to it or it's freezing cold. I throw blankets over them and it works fine. (One picture shows things nice and orderly. The other shows what happens when we "make ourselves comfortable.")
https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10201813438092891 Travis's dogs in his work-in-progress yard. Aela [brown with long ears], Ghost [white with gray saddle] and Grey Wind [the big blondish one]. It does suffer from Vertical Video Syndrome, though.
We only have secondhand furniture so the level of giving a shit is automatically a bit lower, but otherwise ms. katokoch got fabric covers that match Buck's fur decently well so it doesn't look like you're sitting on a fur couch and they are easy to remove and clean. The weirdo sure loves his veggies, he was begging as I was gardening over the weekend. That was a sweet pepper but one of his most infamous tricks (thus far) was the time he stole an entire bag of jalapeno peppers and had them stashed them under the bedding in his kennel while he nibbled on them one at a time.
This is Addie. This is her with my nephew about 6 weeks after she was hit by a car and according to my vet "degloved". After 80 staples and 60-odd stitches she was back to her sweet self. This pic was when she was around 8 years old but she's 11 now and still going strong. Intelligent, sweet, and smart I have never seen her angry except for once when a neighbor's lab knocked my niece over. Addie went batshit and put the other dog on its back yet didn't attack. She just growled and held her teeth on his throat until I seperated them. I have raised her since she was seven weeks old and have to say she's one of the best dogs I've ever had the pleasure of owning.
As far as furniture goes Addie has slept in my bed since I got her until around two years ago yet she never tried to get on any other furniture. She wouldn't even get in my bed until I went to bed. I wish she would still sleep there but with her arthritis and spinedelosis* spelling... She'd gotten slower and more trouble with stairs until I started giving her 7.5 mg of Meloxicam daily. That drug is a miracle worker.
I totally agree with drunkfish on Meloxicam.....my old weimaraner is approaching 11, but gets pretty frisky for a few hours following his dose. He has a bad shoulder and old back hips, but the drug really eases him out. Great old dog.
I got a new baby. This is a 8 month old Aussie Rescue named Willow. She is absolutely a stunner, smart as a whip, and as sweet as can be. Oh and she is fucking nuts. I love her. I am late to the party, but a couple of things that I missed. My 15 year old dog who I had to have put down earlier this year was on Rimadyl for years for his arthritis. It worked great for him. And I let my dogs on the furniture. I love my dogs, the furniture is just "stuff". We got leather sofas selected especially for the dogs. Anything else the hair sticks to.
I'm usually a dog guy but I live alone and travel too much to have a dog so I ended up getting a couple cats to hang out with. I've always let animals on the furniture, yeah they create a bit of a mess (fur) but it'll be ok. Anyway the new guys are Tango and Cash. Siblings and one is bigger than the other. They're pretty chill until you put some soft food out for them, then they're insane. As a dog guy I wanted to be sure they wouldn't be small cats so I found a Savannah/Maine Coon mix. I'm told that they should be pretty large cats. They're only about 5 weeks old right now and it's hard to imagine they will grow that much but I'm hopeful.
Given recent talk about pets on couches I thought this was apt. We let Maverick on the couch and hes very particular about the spot he wants, so ill usually move for him (yes, I'm a pushover) so he can get up and sit on the left hand side of the couch with his head on the cushions. Last night however The Wife was in my usual spot and she wasn't having a bar of it... he managed to crawl up anyway and perch himself on top of the cushions and then gave some glorious side-eye to The Wife:
Our pets have always been allowed on the couch. No big deal. The only problem with our dog is that she likes to burrow under the blankets, so before sitting down I have to poke around to make sure I'm not going to sit on her. In this pic she has her head sticking out, but most of the time she is completely enveloped.
My oldest dog who is currently sick and I have a sinking suspicion it's a sign of something bigger. This one's my baby and it will wreck me when he's gone
Polly got a gash in her tail patched up to today so she has to wear the cone of shame for a couple of days. She is not taking it well; I'd laugh if I wasn't worried about her breaking her own neck from freaking out. I tried taking it off but predictably she started gnawing at her wrapping so I had to put it back on. It's gonna be a rough couple of days for her.
Izzy's been doing really well - we are hoping that the diabetes went into remission. She's been off of insulin for a month, and last week her blood-glucose reading was 104 (to put it in perspective, when the vet first checked it after giving her fluids when she was really sick, it was around 600). We have to take her back for a reading in two months, and if she's alright then, we check it twice a year. Or whenever she shows signs of diabetes (drinking a lot of water and peeing all the time, or just being lethargic like before). Here she is sticking her tongue out for no apparent reason...she did this for a solid ten minutes. She also has a new habit of hiding from me every time I wake up on my days off. She assumes that if I'm not dressed for work, I'm taking her to the vet.