I don’t consider myself a morning person. Sure, when I was young I loved waking up on Saturday morning to watch A Pup Named Scooby Doo, Muppet Babies, Tiny Toon Adventures, Bugs Bunny, Alvin and the Chipmunks, all the amazing shows back then.
After these messages, we’ll be riiiiiiiiight back!
But because I’m a man now, I put that childish behavior behind me. It has completely nothing to do with those shows not being on anymore. Not that I check the TVGuide every Friday night or anything. So Saturdays I am free to sleep in.
My dogs love to sleep in, too. I think they’d sleep till noon if I wasn’t so noisy in the morning. But don’t take their side just yet. Sure, they might sound like good little companions, but no, no, no, not so fast mi compadre!
You know how they say nothing good happens after midnight? Well, it’s true. Especially around 4am when my dogs wake me up because they’re hungry for breakfast. What do they think this is, Waffle House??
This behavior is not something I agree with. In fact, I disavow it on many sides. But they have the power, call them tri-color supremacists, because beagles, if nothing else, are stubborn and persistent. They don’t let the white man sleep.
Wake me up, before you go, go.
It starts as a whimper as if to say, “HE FORGOT THE LAST TIME WE ATE WAS ALL THE WAY BACK YESTERDAY!!!!!!!!” So the whimpering will continue till I adhere to their evil plan.
Piper is almost 8 years old so we’ve been getting up in the wee hours of the night for many moons. That’s only half the problem, though. I also let them outside when we wake up, and this is where I’ve been outsmarting them for about a year. The usual routine was to wake up, feed them, then let them outside. They’d get to carrying on and quite selfishly stay outside till they felt like coming in. Sometimes it can be 2 minutes (if, Lord-willing, it’s raining), or 20 to 30 minutes if they want to punish me. So I’d lay down on the couch and wait.
But I hear sounds in my mind, brand new sounds in my mind.
Sounds of trumpets and confetti because I started thinkin’, and now I trick my dogs into doing this whole morning routine the way I want. Hey, it’s 2017 and “dog owner lives matter,” too!
Well, they still get what they want because we still wake up around 4am for breakfast. But after waking up, they go outside then it’s time to eat. Beagles are so food-driven that once I let them outside and they do their business, they greyhound it back to the door to be let inside. This nearly eliminates all they time they spend outside smelling the grass, or wandering around, or pooping.
And this is how I trick my dogs. Until they read this and start waking up at 3am just to keep the white man on his toes.
-Out of the Wilderness
Out of the Wilderness 