Living with Neapolitan Mastiffs.

Our home is occupied by five Neapolitan Mastiffs a Siamese Cat, husband, self and various children.

We run our own business, attend dog shows most weekends, involve ourselves in the community and just to fill in our spare time work, for Barnados as foster carers. We do long term, short term , respite and crisis placements for children. Hence our home can sometimes be rather crowded and hectic.

On one occasion last year we had been doing respite care for two young boys. My mother was also staying with us at the time so all four bedrooms were occupied. On the Saturday afternoon the boys returned to their home and hubby, for some rest & recreation, drove to Sydney to watch a football match.

Having the house nice and quiet again led to relax mode so mother and I had a pleasant evening inside with two of the dogs and the cat. As a reward for the dogs being so good and patient with the children during their stay, I decided to let them stay in the house for the night.

Being very Neapolitan, one slept on the floor by my bed and the other stationed himself at the front door. Every hour they changed positions - somewhat like the "Changing of the guard". I slept, safe in the knowledge that I, mother and the house were in very capable hands and heard nothing until the next morning.

On waking, I noticed there were no dogs in sight, and no husband in the bed. I went out to the family room and there sat Hubby eating breakfast. I greeted him and received stony silence in return. Mother came out and was subjected to the same. Finally after plying him with a second coffee, he explained the reason for his "ill temper".

On the way home from Sydney he became tired, so stopped and had a sleep in the car for a few hours. Eventually he arrived home at about 2am. On entering the house he saw only one Neapolitan, who preceded him up the hallway and climbed on to his side of the bed. She lay down with her head on his pillow, letting out a gentle snore to remind him to never wake a sleeping Mastino. On that note he decided removing 65kg of sleeping Mastino may cause a general disturbance.

He went into the fourth bedroom thinking it unoccupied. On pulling back the blankets and with one leg in the bed, he was confronted by Mother-in-law who was in that particular bed shining a torch in his face and asking who it was. After that fright he retreated to the next bedroom and settled into the single bed. This was one of the rooms set up for children and has a trundle bed. He had just fallen asleep when the male Neapolitan tried to join him. Being a single bed there was not enough room for them both, so the dog eventually settled for the floor next to the bed. Shortly he was serenaded to sleep by the gentle snores of our large 85kg male.

Suddenly he awoke to find himself jammed between the bed and wall. The Siamese cat had got onto the trundle bed and said to the dog "lets play". The dog shoved his head and shoulders under the bed to get near the cat and managed to lift it up with Hubby still in it.

No further explanation for the stony silence was required, and needless to say I have been banned from bringing dogs in to sleep overnight.