My Dogs Can Tell Time

That Nugget can hear so much as a crumb land in his steel bowl in the kitchen from probably as far as 32 miles away is no less a mystery to me than his expectation of my punctual delivery of each meal to that bowl.  Truth be told, having a dog will completely negate your need for an alarm clock.  This is extremely helpful on weekdays, given my tendency to hit "snooze" 17 times before actually opening my eyes.  However, dogs do not know the difference between a Tuesday and a Saturday, or a paid holiday and a typical Monday.  I've tried tirelessly to explain, "Tomorrow is SATURDAY.  Mom doesn't go to work on SATURDAY.  We can sleep in" but this is usually met with a look of indifference, thus gone are the days of sleeping until noon on Saturdays.  Nugget and Oscar apparently have very busy schedules to keep, so sleeping one minute past 7:00 is entirely out of the question.

Not only will you be (sometimes rudely) awaken from your peaceful slumber at precisely the same time (down to the nanosecond!) each morning, you might also be awoken at various intervals throughout the night for any number of reasons.  There's the "Thank-God-I-sleep-in-nothing-less-than-a-complete-outfit" alarm because inevitably, someone drank to much water before bed and won't make it to morning without a quick trip outside, lest there be a puddle on my bedroom floor.  The "Are-you-f*ckung-kidding-me?" alarm boasts the all too familiar sound of dry heaving followed by a presentation of an edited version of last night's dinner.  (I guess that moth you ferociously stalked for 3 hours last night and eventually swallowed didn't set well, huh?).  And then there's the silent, bruise-inducing kick to the ribs by a large, pointy retriever paw, sure to startle you awake whilst the canine offender continues his action movie-like dream, worthy of an Oscar (the award, not another labradoodle) for his performance as a mighty and fearless hunter of alien squirrels threatening to take over the city. 

Yes, a solid, uninterrupted 8 hours of sleep is most likely out of the question for years to come, but these moonlit courtesy calls usually allow me the opportunity to also empty my bladder... or complete any number of chores I had been putting off (like finishing the last 287 pages of Gone With the Windin one sitting... or gouging my eyes out with a spork), since falling immediately back to sleep is typically a challenge.

Thanks to the military drill sergeant promptness by which my canine companions alert me to breakfast time, I get much more accomplished on the weekends now.  But just once... just ONE time, can we do an Iams brunch instead of an Iams sunrise?