My husband and I have been married for seven years, and I have not once been awakened in the middle of the night with snoring.  Until the dog came to live with us.

Braun the big brown dog (also known as a Chocolate Labrador) became a part of our family in the summer of 2005.  His previous owners could no longer care for him, since they were moving house and couldn’t take Braun with them.  I told his previous owner that I would be glad to take him into our family, and he moved right in.  It didn’t take him long to decide that his two favorite people in the world were my three-year-old son and nineteen-year-old stepson.  At six years old, Braun hadn’t lost a step and still had all the playfulness and vitality of a puppy.  Without the chewing.

I have always been a dog owner.  I’ve had several Beagles, a Golden Retriever, and before the addition of Braun, two Walker Coonhounds.  All my prior dogs were “outside” dogs, meaning they rarely, if ever, came into the house.  Braun is an inside dog, and rarely, if ever, goes outside.  Never having a dog live in the house, I didn’t know what to expect.  Braun is well-behaved and loving, and has never had an accident.  He is the perfect indoors pet, until he goes to sleep.

The first evening Braun lived in our house, my husband and I turned on our computers after my young son had gone to bed.  My stepson was in his room, playing video games, and the house was quiet.  Suddenly, we heard the loudest snore we had ever heard.  My husband checked on my stepson.  When he opened his door, he was sitting on his bed, obviously not asleep.  He then checked on my young son, who is a sound sleeper and not known for snoring.  If it was him, it was a sure sign that my little boy was beginning to get sick.

When he opened the door to my son’s room, all he could hear was the quiet, rhythmic breathing of a sleeping child.  He came back to me, busily working at my computer, and informed me that it was neither of the children.  We began to search the house for our dear old cat, who is a noisy sleeper in her own right.  We found her, lying on a chair, purring in her sleep.  The sounds coming from her were nowhere near the volume we had heard.  Then, suddenly, a yelp from our newest family member.

Concerned for him, my husband and I rushed to Braun, only to find him sprawled out on a pile of dirty clothes waiting to be washed, sound asleep.  We watched as he ran in his sleep, and listened as he barked at phantom squirrels and groundhogs, and snored louder than any human I have ever heard.

When I married my husband, I knew I could probably expect a partner that would snore, and may even wake me with his snoring.  Braun sleeps next to my bed most nights, and it isn’t my husband that wakes me with his snoring – it’s my dog, my faithful companion, Braun the big brown dog.

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