Gorka Marquez had a plea for Gemma Atkinson after a nighttime struggle. The couple, who met on Strictly Come Dancing in 2017, recently welcomed a new dog into their lives.

The brought home goldendoodle puppy Benji in May, shortly before Gorka’s Speakeasy tour with fellow Strictly professional Karen Hauer. Gemma revealed the pup became “like a shadow” while Gorka was away from the family home.

Benji even began sleeping on the couple’s bed with Gemma. On the couple’s Lost in Translation podcast, Gorka revealed Benji now jumps on him and “licks his ear” during the night, sometimes even landing awkwardly as he leaps back onto the bed.

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He said: “It’s the fact that since I came home now, because I was away for six weeks and I knew this was going to happen, now Benji is used to being in the bed with us, and every night jumps in and out in the middle of the night. It’s cute and lovely but imagine when he jumps at three in the morning, you’re deep asleep and he’s licking your ear.

“It’s not nice. He jumps and when he jumps he doesn’t know where he lands. And a few times he has landed on my little crackers. And it’s very painful when you’re asleep.”

Gemma insists Benji spends large parts of his night “sleeping on the floor” next to the couple’s bed. She responded: “You were away for seven weeks and when you left, he wasn’t big enough to jump on the bed. He’s a big dog now. He’s obsessed with me though.”

She added: “The thing is with Benji, he slept on the floor next to my side of the bed and he loved it. But he’s not on the bed all night. He gets in when we’re getting into bed and he’ll sit with us for 10 minutes then he goes on the floor.

“He’s on the floor for most of the night. It’s only if I get up to the bathroom, he follows me to the bathroom and he puts his head on my knee when I’m weeing. Then he’ll jump back in bed with me.”

Gorka however insists that Benji stole his spot in the bed recently while he was helping their sonThiago settle at 5.30am. Gemma says the only thing the couple can do now is leave the dog downstairs, but she fears he will “cry all night”.

Gemma added: “Wait until we get another one.” To which Gorka jokingly replied: “Then I leave then.”

Gorka revealed he had made a plea to Gemma when he first returned from tour. He said: “First week home, I slept really bad and I said, ‘Gemma, we cannot have this, Benji cannot keep sleeping on the bed’, she went, ‘Well you can go in the spare room’. So that’s what’s going to happen, nice, great.”

Gemma claims Gorka “sleeps better” when he’s sleeping alone. She added: “Some couples do that, some couples have separate bedrooms, it doesn’t mean they love each other any less.”

Gorka insists he’s “happy” to sleep in the same bed as Gemma but not Benji. He added: “I love the dog but he needs to go down.”