One Big Dog Night

The wind was nasty last night, hitting the side of the house like a giant wolf trying to knock our house of wood down. And no one got up in the night to toss another log in the furnace so the house was frigid this morning, filled with the cold breath of the big, bad wolf.
It certainly wasn't dog breath. She was buried under the covers between my husband and me. 
As I lay in bed this morning with my body pressed up against Abby's soft, warm back, my cold nose pressed into her warm neck, this photo popped into my mind. Me and my daddy and Daisy the pup snuggled together under the quilts.
It appears I was the early riser, dressed and breakfasted before waking Daddy up.
As I lay in bed this morning listening to Abby breathe, thinking of this photo, thinking of this morning ritual established in my wee baby brain, I thought, "I was born a dog person."
Then I wondered how I could be so bad at it. Not at being a dog person, necessarily; I love them and want a life filled with them. But I don't have great success training dogs. Really, I raised my dogs to be like me: More enthusiasm than skill. I just don't jump up on people and cars (although I did back into a tree a few years ago).
Given my trials with the obstinate, dominant Stella, we tried something different with Abby. She slept with us from the moment she came home with us (ohmygodshewassocute). Trainers may say this is a recipe for disaster since our little puppy would grow into a large, leggy dog that would consider our bed equally hers but at the time, it was very convenient for house-training and for bonding.
I didn't do this with Stella and Stella is a completely different dog than Abby but I still believe bringing Abby into our bed when she was a puppy, instead of making her sleep in a crate as Stella did, has made a difference. Gosh, it's nice having a dog that comes when she's called.
Yeah, the bonding is worth it even though her face is the first one I see when I wake up in the morning. Now I have sneak back into bed to snuggle with my husband.
Here's the other thing about that little dog person in the photo: She's still the early riser who gets up, makes a fire in the cold furnace, turns on the coffee maker and gives the dogs their breakfast before crawling into bed next to her husband and waking him up with a cold nose pressed into his warm neck.