When we adopted my parents’ eight-year-old black lab, Candy, Mom and Dad said that she slept on her dog bed. Turns out she prefers the couch, though, to which Mom suggested the trick was to place stacks of books and magazines on the couch. This worked for a few days, but then it led to more dog-earing (if you will) of our reading materials than dog-proofing of our sitting materials. 

We gave up and started covering the couch with her car blanket. She mostly sleeps on the couch. 

We occasionally find her hanging out on her dog bed, though, and it usually turns out that she’s there when the car blanket has fallen off the couch. If we fix the blanket, she immediately moves back to the couch. 

I’m pleased that she respects the blanket rule, but I have to wonder: who has trained whom?