Getting into a Routine

Ms. Puppy and I have been formulating a routine, even though I'm still on summer vacation.

The cats wake us up around 5:30 or 6:00 a.m. I take her out to "pisch." That's my spouse's word for peeing. Birdy is pretty much sleeping though the night now. We get her worn out with long walks and don't give her water after 8:00 p.m. (a recommendation of one of the clerks at Bend Pet Express.)

After her pisch, I feed the cats. This requires a kind of dance. Birdy is in the kitch with a door on one side and her pet gate on the other. The cats are whining about their breakfast which is kept in a kichen cupboard in a tin. I scoop out their servings and have to get out of the kitchen without Birdy getting out. Sometimes I can get her distracted with a little piece of kitty kibble. Other times I need to leash her to part of the pet gate and then leave. She'll yip a bit as I walk into the living room to feed the cats. After that, I return to the kitchen, make my coffee, and feed her a mix of kibble (two kinds of small chunk Iams) and wet food (Natural Balance Beef).

I do some kind of work for about an hour after her breakest as I have my coffee and eat my own food. (Obviously, I haven't been working on this blog!) Then we go for a long morning walk. If I'm out between 7:30 a.m. and 8:30 I see many other dog owners. (I'll be blogging more about them in a later entry.)

We play a bit when I return. My husband is up so he says "hi" to her. Afterwords, I am off for the morning to do work or yoga or whatever it is that humans do. I'm usually back in the afternoon for some kind of dog activity. She sleeps much of the morning and some of the afternoon. She usually eats dinner after the cats and before my spouse and I. Then we have another long walk about an hour after her dinner.

This routine does. however, have some variation, as I'll explain later.