Further to my post below. It worked! Well, it worked at one level.

About 6.30 a.m., Sunday, I heard the start of playing.

I encouraged them out of the bedroom and shut the doors, putting something behind the doors to stop them opening.

Only once did I hear an attempt to get through. There was no whimpering or other noise. I slept until 9!

So, Sunday was a good day.

F suggested that I get some sort of latch so we can latch the door. In fact, I will be getting two. One for when we are in the bedroom and one for when we are not.

The reason for the latter is because of two reasons.

1. Sunday night, we got back from having a pizza and, as usual, the dogs came to greet us. Piero was a bit late. As I thought, he had been on the bed. Worse, he had taken soomething fromo the bedside table and destroyed it. It wasn’t important in that it was only a box of plasters but that wasn’t really the point. The getting on the bed has to stop.

Of course, the problem is that it is not possible to enter the bedroom without coming into the flat through the front door – which always gives him time to get off the bed.

2. On Monday morning I got up a little later as F was going to take them out. I got up and, as usual, Piero was asleep in the lounge. I closed the doors to the bedroom and got ready for work, had a coffee, etc. Piero was completely quiet. When I left, I had opened the doors to the lounge but not the bedroom. Apparently, at about 7.30, he started whimpering, which woke F up.

So, for these two reasons, a latch or latches of some kind must be bought and fixed. And it’s not so simple either. The latches must be operable from both sides since I must be able to close the door from outside the bedroom and yet F must be able to open it when he gets up.

Actually this may require a ‘man’ to do it.

But, you may ask, why don’t you just shut the door properly?

Well, the problem is that these doors are very old (possibly as old as the flat) and they have warped and been painted over numerous times so that they a) don’t close exactly and b) anyway the handle doesn’t actually work.

On a more positive note, this morning, both dogs came with me as I went to get ready and have coffee. Again, I left the flat leaving the bedroom door closed but Dino knows you just need to push it. F informed me that, this morning, they were quiet.