THE SCIENCE OF SLEEPING AND NAPPING IN THE WORLD OF DOGS AND CATS....

This weekend's edition of Let Sleeping Dogs Lie & Napping Cats Nap serves as a scientific observation platform.
 Don't let that scare you. There won't be a test -- except testing whether you might chuckle at the concept. Remember: Stay warm and read on.
This intellectual endeavor is not quite in the research league of NASA's current Artemis I moon shot, but it is every bit as demonstrable as using pictures of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to prove that man has landed on the moon. (Just 12 humans so far, but when it comes to sleeping/napping animals on earth, the evidence is much stronger that one giant leap for a cat is one snoozing couch for dogkind.)
Yes, that is why so many of us have furniture in our homes. So the animals have a comfortable place to sleep.

Now, here is the assertion inspired by our photographic research: Through the application and analysis of evidence in candid photographs, we have formed what may well be a historical breakthrough regarding interspecies influence and communication.
 We think we have photographic evidence that animals of one species willfully teach companion animals of another species to sleep in the most advantageously comfortable and comforting positions.
Many years ago, the inadvertent researchers at readlarrypowell.com began living with a gentlemanly older cat. His name, as official documents reveal, was The Senator. You see him above in a pose he would take as he drew to a close in his daily stretch and dance routine. Perhaps you have seen professional dancers in just such a pose -- we do not know if they had any contact with this influential feline, The Senator, rest his soul. Much of his work in The Senate is not available to the public at this time -- we are unsure if he was involved in guiding classified research into human behavior.

Years ago, early in the previous decade, we brought two rescued dogs into the house -- you've seen them before. We're proud of them. We keep up with their personal lives and their ambitions, i.e., their appetites for life.
 In the second photo of The Senator, you see him in the "leg down" position on the back of his favorite chair, one of my slumberspouse Martha's recliners. No cat has ever napped with the intense intention of The Senator. And he was a seasoned communicator, addressing dogs and cats, i.e., both sides of the aisle, as if he needed everyone's vote. He was the consummate cat. A champion of diplomacy. Washington needed him.

As you see in the first dog photo, Porche Noel discovered the joy of "Leg Down Slumber" on the back of the living room couch. Porche, as she must have learned from The Senator, experienced the "Joy of Dogsleep."

So did Wendy, captured in that copycat, so to speak, leg-down position on the edge of the couch.

Neither Wendy nor Porche has ever had a moment of trouble nodding off. 
Thus, we present this theory: Two dogs learned the proper position of "leg-draping" from a cat who understood and promoted the joy of cat-napping as a way of achieving peace on earth.
As voice actress/author JoJo Jensen is quoted: "Without enough sleep, we all become tall two-year-olds."

Now, if we can just talk the world's leaders into adopting the peaceful "Drape-a-Leg Style" of napping to take some pressure off the rest of us. The Senator would be helping if he hadn't been summoned to a higher position. Got his name because he looked as if he'd had official U.S. Senate Hairplugs.
[DEAR READERS, Please send photos of your sleeping dogs, napping cats or slumbering relatives visiting for the holidays to [email protected]. Include their biographies. We'll spotlight 'em in our long-running weekend feature Let Sleeping Dogs Lie & Napping Cats Nap. You'll be helping people decide to buy new furniture so the dogs and cats can sleep. And you'll be helping insomniacs have faith that they can get some sleep if they can just decide how to drape a leg over the back of the couch without kicking out a window or falling between the sofa and the living room wall. (LARRY CONFESSION: There would have been a photo of me stretched across the back of the couch while dangling one arm and one leg toward the cushions but it would have been a lousy selfie and my insomnia affects my balance -- and there are laws....)]

--- Offer slumbertips or furniture styles by clicking on 'comment' below or by emailing [email protected] and put LAY OFF THE PM JAVA in the subject line. ---