Each week, Ben Westhoff shares the ups and downs of owning Pippi, the dalmatian mix he and his wife Anna adopted as a puppy in late 2009, and the first dog Ben’s ever had.

Shortly after we adopted Pippi, Anna and I moved into our apartment in suburban New Jersey. Soon after that, we got a new couch. And not long after that, we created a new rule: No Pippi on the couch.

If you could see how pretty this piece of furniture is, you’d probably understand. (Not to mention the fact that it’s worth almost as much as I am.) Yet we know many folks who give their pooches free range. In many of these cases, this stems less from a relaxed attitude than the perception that enforcement is difficult.

Indeed, for us it sometimes is. When Anna and I eat dinner in front of the TV, Pippi often tries to wiggle her way up onto the couch next to us. We gently repel her, just as we do when she attempts entry onto the chair Anna inherited from her grandmother, or the bed. (Most of the time, that is. Anna can be a weak link when it comes to the occasional canine snuggle under the covers.)

There is one piece of furniture on which Pippi is allowed. It’s the beige chair in the living room. A hand-me-down Anna inherited years ago from a former roommate, it’s a wood-framed camelback armchair upholstered in heavy jacquard fabric that Pippi nevertheless has rubbed pretty raw.