It's official: letting your pet sleep in your bed is a bad idea. Don't believe me? Well, I've got the science to back me up . Turns out sleeping with your furry friend can expose you to all kinds of medical bother including meningitis and toxocariasis, which sounds downright nasty. But I don't think obscure health concerns are the main issue, here. Call me a cynic, but beds are for people; I remember buying mine, and there weren't any dogs in the store testing twin mattresses, checking pillow softness or debating headboard designs. The dogs were outside, sleeping very happily on the sidewalk. As they should be. And it's not like I make my dog, Bubs, sleep out on the sidewalk, of course. He actually has a bed, a comfy little number my sister gave my girlfriend and I when we got him. (See the picture, and please note how extremely cosy it all looks, with the blanket and pillow.) Having grown up with dogs that slept outside or in crates on another floor of the house from the bedrooms, I'm of the opinion that Bubs should be happy with his little set-up beside the bed. But he's not. He's an attention hog, and hates being left out – Bubs is a dog that cannot brook closed doors in his house – so he roams around the bed looking for an invitation up. It's our fault, Agnes and I: we've taken to letting him on the bed in mornings, as a kind of compromise. It's gone to his head, and now he's not happy sleeping anywhere else. When, in the past, we made the mistake of giving in at bedtime and letting him up on the bed (or when he made a stealthy mid-night grab at some mattress space) it was a study in awkwardness. In the grand scheme of the universe, Bubs occupies about two-and-a-half square feet of space. In bed, at three a.m., though, he manages to transform into a festival of shoving legs and cold wet noses that gradually takes over most of a queen-size bed. He acts as a wedge, flopping down between Agnes and pushing against both of us to carve out his spot. He then ignores most of that space and tucks himself tightly in beside me. If I roll over, he shifts with me, preventing me from rolling back. It's a problem. Now, I'm used to sharing a bed, so that's not the issue. (Although, ironically enough, I often envy Bubs for having a bed all to himself, even as he tries desperately to share mine. Maybe a swap is in order.) But Bubs is only about 15 pounds, despite how much bigger his fur makes him look, and the prospect of rolling over on him nibbles away in the back of my mind. Bringing your worries to bed with you is enough to keep you awake even that worry isn't actually physically in the bed with you. It's like sleeping with a carton of eggs, provided the carton of eggs snores and thrusts a paw in your face every now and then. So I look back with envy on the days when my dogs weren't even allowed upstairs, let alone in the bed. I know it's too late to deny Bubs entry to the bedroom, though – I'll be outvoted 2-1 in my household on that. Regardless, I'm determined that morally – and, now, scientifically – I'm in the right: pets have no place in the bed.