Good Morning, Dogs

My two dogs hate it when I sleep too long.  They get concerned for me if I'm not up and at 'em shortly after sunrise.  In summer, that's much too early for my taste, but apparently dogs like first light as much as the birds do.

Buddy comes to the bed with two tennis balls stuffed in his big golden retriever mouth.  He will casually spit them out by my ear, by my armpit, by whichever body part he thinks might attract my attention.  He wants me to throw the balls so he can chase them.  Great fun first thing in the morning, right?  I, being a human and not thinking too clearly after being recently fast asleep, throw them to get rid of the slimey things.  But that just plays right into the paws of a golden who loves to retrieve as much as he loves to eat.  Boomerang balls.

Abby has several ways of "seeing to my welfare". I might suddenly have a cold, wet nose pasted to my own nose.  She might sneak onto the bed and curl up next to me, suddenly raising the temperature of my environs to something over a hundred degrees. Or, my personal favorite, and I mean that, is that Abby has mastered the word "mom".  She will simply hum the "m" if the situation isn't too critical.  I'll hear a low, quiet, growly "mmmmmm".  If I don't respond, she'll do it again until I do respond.

The more stressed she gets, the closer she comes to completely saying the whole word.  Abby's early abuse has led her to an abiding distrust of men in general and tall, thin men in particular.  One time, the postman came to the door with a good-sized package for me.  He knocked, and I went out on the porch to take the package.  Abby was inside the glass door watching in horror.  Suddenly she came out with, "momomomomom".  The postman and I looked at her, then looked at each other in surprise.  Neither of us laughed, because Abby was so obviously in distress.  But we both heard her say the word repeatedly.

And none of this has to do with feeding or going outside.  Les does that for them.  Then they come to get me up.  Sigh!

I haven't needed an alarm clock all summer.  So, how is YOUR morning going so far?

Thanks for visiting with me.

Kathi