Must Love Dogs (to like this story)

I happen to think I have one of the cutest dogs ever. Miss Kaya is my big fat lover dog, my sidekick in all that I do. She's an Australian cattle/shepherd dog, mixed with something (what? I'm not really sure.), a little big for a medium sized dog, and too small to be a big dog. She's incredibly well-behaved, and just all-around awesome (for a dog).
One of her funny quirks is bedtime. Every night we go through the same routine. She starts nudging me and pushing me to go to bed several hours earlier than I care to go. She whines and nudges quite a bit, and I just ignore it, and eventually tell her to just "GO!" and point upstairs. Sometimes she'll go upstairs to the bedroom without me, sometimes she won't. Usually she stays right by me, whining and whining till I go up.
When I do finally go to my room, there's plenty of computer time, reading time, etc, with the lights on long before I go to bed. During this time Kaya will whine, nudge, push me, etc again. Eventually she will either sleep on the floor with her head under the bed until I turn off the lights, or she will attempt to go sneak into another room to sleep. But finally I say my prayers and turn off the light, at which point she jumps up on the bed and snuggles like the pack dog she is, right up against me.
But this week we had a funny little interruption in our routine. Her whining, pushing, and nudging had started right on schedule at 8 pm. I was downstairs but needed something from upstairs, so I got up to go get it. Kaya took my activity as a sign we were actually going to bed. She raced ahead of me up the stairs, the happiest dog you have ever seen. The lights were off already and she literally dove into the bed and claimed her usual position. Seeing this cracked me up. She actually thought I was doing something her way. And so, since I had nothing better to do, I laid down on the bed (fully clothed, on top of the blankets) beside her. She snuggled right up to me, and was instantly asleep. Conveniently I fell asleep shortly thereafter.
I got to thinking about it. My dog never wins her little wants with me. I'm the master, I'm the boss, she's the dog. This was her first ever victory. When I woke up a little bit later, she lifted her head in one big sigh, rolled over, and went back to sleep. When she woke up later, you have never seen a more loving and happy dog. She's always loyal and adoring, but after giving her this stupid little bedtime victory, she loved me even more. I was the recipient of more licks and her "happy nudges" than I ever cared to receive.
This is why dog is man's (or woman's) best friend!
Right now the lights are off, I'm in my bed, but the laptop is glowing brightly. And so my dog has moved down by my feet, away from the light, and is making periodic whining noises to try to convince me to go to sleep.
Sorry, pup. But I still have stuff to do!