When my dog was still alive and I was traveling on my own I would used the upper bunk so I could keep the table up on my
Scamp. I added an extra post a bit closer to center for more support which still gave the dog room to get into the bottom bunk. People who saw my set up use to laugh as the bottom bunk is bigger than the upper bunk but not big enough for a person and a large lab. Stopping him from joining me at 2 in the morning was not an option. :-)