Dog days

A day in the life of me? A workday or a weekend day? Just joking. All my days are just as unpredictable and cray as the next. Usually my day starts at the crack of dawn – that would be 5:48am to be exact. My alarm clock is my brother Patty; the thump thump of his long wagging tail is enough to wake the whole room. In the bedroom sleeps my Ma and Pa up on the big human bed with my Spinster sisters curled up in-between. Patty and I sleep together on a big dog bed-sofa thingy. Then on either side the big human bed is usually a dog crate or a puppy playpen. Sometimes there is just one foster puppy sibling in it and sometimes a whole arrangement of puppies, maybe kittens and on occasion even a piglet.

Once awoken by Sir Tail Thumper we all spring into action and like a stampede we race full bore down the hall towards the backyard ready for our morning synchronised pee. Then, inside, we gather in the kitchen while Pa serves us our breakfast. After breakie we wait by the front door ready for our daily walk to the park for a good run and play. By 8am we are home again and utterly z’orsted. We take up our 12-hour napping positions on the couch and settle in for the day.

On some days Ma might need to take us or one of our foster siblings up to the vet. Foster kids need a lot of vet stuff done – there are vaccinations, check-ups and de-sexing ops to arrange, so we visit the vet often. Other days we go on all sorts of adventures. Sometimes we visit dog beaches and far away dog parks, and other days we might go help Ma run some errands. One of my favourite places to visit is the post office. The post office is a wonderful place – I walk on in empty paw-ed, only to leave with letters and parcels of all kinds of donated goodies for my foster siblings, and some pretty awesome fan mail for Patty and me. Then, in the arvo and especially if I have a day filled with adventures, I’ll retake up my favourite position on the couch.

As if it’s his duty, at about 4:30pm every day, just like the morning alarm clock, Patty will start wagging his tail again. Thump thump thump… it’s time for dinner! Ma can’t ignore the Patty tail-wag alarm reminder. So as she gets up from her computer we all jump up and race on back to the kitchen – even the fosters learn quick and join us in the kitchen. Supervising dinner is a minimum of a four-dog job, it’s very important for us all to be there watching just in case something may fall to the ground. We pride ourselves on living in a clean house so, you know, we help where we can.

After dinner, Ma calls it ‘crazy hour’. This is the hour of the day where we pup-kids enjoy a good old game of ‘zoomies’ around the courtyard. If it’s a warm summer’s night Ma might even include some watersports (the hose). Once our nightly game of zoomies has come to an end, it’s back on that plush couch of ours to snore the evening away. Of course, if The Bachelor is on then I’ll take myself a small break from my nap. Once my Ma and Pa have finished with all their human people stuff for the day we all retire once more to our bedroom.

I’m an incredibly good people trainer, right from the start I taught my Pa to carry me to bed. And so each day I am carried down the long hallway and tucked into bed. With a kiss on my head and a whisper in my ear from my Ma, I drift off to sleep. Next minute and before you know it… thump thump thump. It’s a new day.