Our Roxy is 13 months old, and she is a beast about the bed.
When we first adopted her from the rescue she was badly beaten up with health issues. We slept with her to keep her warm (she was missing a ton of fur) and keep her relatively immobile. I probably should have kept her in the crate. In a few weeks I started to notice that she would "guard" the bed from the other animals. You see, she was asserting that her place in the pack order was different than we saw it.
I started to correct and put her at the foot of the bed, on the floor, each time she would say, growl at one of the other animals. Fast forward a few more weeks and she is growling at my partner, Tom., when he asks her to get in her bed. Although now the growl is more a of a grumble, we made the mistake of letting her sleep in our bed and unlearning that is a challenge.
You will hear arguments on both sides of this issue, but for us, I would have preferred to keep her off the bed (and all furniture) unless she was invited. She understands being invited on to the bed or couch for short periods of time, but she can be a bit grumpy when it's time to get down. She is a lot more grumpy with Tom than she is with me.
Right now, because of this issue, I am working with Tom and Rox every evening to build trust and teach Tom how to use calm assertive energy with her. Sometimes we don't understand why they can't just understand that we don't want them hogging the bed, and they just can't understand why we used to love it and now we are grumpy about it
Vicious circle. Here is what we do now:
Overnight we let her sleep in her own dog bed in our room, with the door closed. Her collar and tags make a ton of noise so that we hear her if she gets up. Risk: She could get into something, but she's not much of a troublemaker like that. Other risk: She definitely pooped in our room 4-5 times during her colitis. That wasn't fun and made it impossible to sleep. Pro: she is near us, as boxers love, and she gets a comfy bed and partial freedom.
Tom let's her out around 6:30 AM to pee/poo and when he brings her back in the house she gets to lay with me for 30 minutes or so until I get up.
Around 7 I put her in her cage, I say "get in your kennel" and she goes in without a fuss. One of us comes home within 7 hours to let her out to run around, pee poo, etc. and she is free to roam the house (although I close bedroom doors) until bedtime. She signals at the sliding glass door when she needs to go out.
She is not allowed in bedrooms without us present. When she is in our bedroom with us at night our door is closed. As I said, I wish she would have never been allowed on the bed. I am the one paying the price for that. She loves to roll in poo and I really pay for that if she jumps on my bed with poop on her fur.
Boundaries are good for all of us
Take care!
. When he was a baby I would wake up at his slightest move to take him out, but as he grew up I gradually allowed myself to sleep deeper. When he had major abdominal surgery at 7 months we slept on a mattress on the floor in the living room so he didn't have to jump to get in bed, and it worked out fine.