What's Eating Simba Grainger?

You always hear stories about the effects of a first pregnancy on the family pet. Do they sense that the family is about to expand? If so, do they worry that their rank and file in the household will be mitigated? For the first 24 weeks of Brooks' pregnancy everything was status quo with Simba. He went to the park everyday for an hour of exercise. He ate his food only with a layer of shredded chicken on it. He drank out of the toilet. He slept in our bed every night.

Then things started to change. There was more whining when he felt he wasn't being paid enough attention. He ate less and less of his food and begged more aggressively for human food. But the biggest clincher that something was up was when he stopped sleeping in the bed with us and started spending every night on our den couch. This is a dog who had previously spent a total of ONE NIGHT not in our bed during the 4 1/2 years we had him, and that was the first night we got him (he cried all night by the way).

So, for the last 12 weeks of this pregnancy Simba has abandoned our bed. Without a doubt he knows something is up. That being said, anyone who knows Brooks knows that there is no way he will receive less attention once the twins are born. Essentially, we will have three kids. What's funny is that when we couldn't get him out of the bed we fantasized about how nice it would be to not have an additional 115 pounds in our bed on a nightly basis. But now that that he refuses to sleep with us we kind of miss him.