Diary Entry #2: Another day, another nap

January 6, 2005

Dear Diary,

My best friend, Abel, and I are back to our old routines, now that our loyal owner, the person who makes sure our meals arrive on time and to our liking, has returned to wherever it is that the car goes each morning at 7:00 a.m. How do I know it's 7:00 a.m.? Because that is exactly the time that Abel and I settle back into our beds after watching our loyal owner wave good-bye from the part of our two acres that has no grass.

We have set a pretty firm routine in this house: wake loyal owner at 5:00 a.m., after that buzzing thing starts bothering us, wake loyal owner again at 5:05 a.m., wake loyal owner again at 5:10 a.m., etc. This is our job and we do it faithfully until we see the covers on the bed move. That is our signal that our job is done for another 24 hours. We have trained our owner to this routine, but it took many, many days to have it down to a learned behavior. We give our rewards at the doggie gate dividing us from the room that used to be our sleeping quarters. This means lots of barking, wagging of tails, and jumping on our owner's legs and they climb over the gate.

From that moment, we allow our owner to take a great deal of time to think about what we might like for breakfast. This takes about a half hour or so. By then it's about 6:00 a.m. and we are summoned to be dressed for the day in our collars...a sure signal that we have trained well. Next comes the pouring the water out of our two bowls, and the filling of our bowl with the food chosen especially for our delicate palates.

Somehow, in the middle of all of this, our loyal owner sometimes decides to forget previous training, and starts to disturb the two parakeets with lots of talking and bird talk. Incredible as it sounds, we are sometimes left standing, waiting for the bowls to be placed in our preferred locations on the kitchen floor. We have to then give signals, such as standing perfectly still and staring, until loyal owner gets the message and remembers who runs this house.

Now, it is the best time of the morning: breakfast, followed by some crunchy tidbits in another bowl, our dessert, you might say. Immediately following this routine we have to stare again and we are given our rawhide sticks for an after-meal refreshment.

Loyal owner disappears, after doing lots of things to the parakeets, and we have no idea what they are. Exactly 30 minutes later, loyal owner emerges from our former bedroom to say good-bye and to get into the machine that makes noise and moves out of our yard. Thank goodness that's over. We settle down to another day of napping and walking around checking for bugs and such, watching tv, and generally chilling. However, should a stranger walk up to the front door to leave a package, as frequently happens, we have to get up, start barking furiously, and try to claw our way through the windows, just to give a good show.

As annoying as doing this watchdog duty is, it breaks up the day somewhat, and we plop down on our beds and resume our naps. Just about the time we are ready to go out and stretch our legs, about 4:00 p.m., loyal owner shows up to start dinner, just as we expect. It really is a good life, and in spite of being required to play ball with loyal owner to keep up the training we started, it certainly beats chasing a fake rabbit in circles.

Sincerely contented,
Ashley, greyhound extrordinaire, retired professional racer