Morning Routines

Every morning I have the same steps to get ready for the day. Most days I get woken up by what my family has lovingly referred to as a Maggie pounce. Our cocker spaniel Maggie loves to run into my room, jump up on my bed and pounce on me. She proceeds to kiss my face until I give in and start to get up for the day. I can definitely think of worse ways to be woken up in the morning.

Erza follows the pup entourage and meows at me until I put her morning scoop of kibble into her bowl. She also gets a fish oil treat crushed up with her breakfast to help with the persistent dandruff that makes her very itchy. If I try and roll over and go back to sleep after Maggie has left the room to grab her ball, Erza with walk on me to get to my face and proceed to lick my eye lids to try and get me to open them back up and give her breakfast. (Again, worse ways to be woken up.)

Maggie will eventually return with her ball and wait for me to get dressed and start to head down the stairs. After I grab my daily Pepsi bottle, and give Cooper his morning dose of Benadryl, (he has so many allergies) I will sit on the large bean bag chair that we have in the living room and play fetch with Maggie. Personally I think Maggie loves to play with me in the morning because I am her personal hype woman. Every time she goes to get the ball and brings it back she is cheered on and praised. She is actually pretty good at catching the ball either from the original throw or off the first bounce.

Breakfast for both me and the dogs happen eventually, usually after Maggie is done playing for the moment. I will spend time cuddling with each dog on the bean bag chair, which has basically become a giant dog bed most of the time. The dogs will actually take turns laying on the bean bag with me and I absolutely love the fact that they each want hugs from me in the morning.

Now, since my parents and sister are out camping this weekend, I have had to do the dogs full morning routine with them. I sleep in my parents’ room with the dogs and they decide when it is time to get up in the morning. Today that happened to be 5 am. When I let them outside, because they normally wake up and have to use the facilities, only River actually did anything. Maggie and Cooper just stood on the step by the back door and looked out on the yard like they were Simba and Mufasa from The Lion King. I felt a little annoyed.

By that time I was already moving around enough that my body was waking up so I just started my morning routine and now I am trying to use the extra bit of time to be productive. It has not escaped my notice that Maggie is currently snoring in the chair next to me, and the boys are asleep in other positions around the living room. At least they get to go back to sleep.