I get up at around oh dark hundred most mornings. When I come downstairs, Sampson is asleep on Keeway’s big bed. I always go over to him and give him a kiss and a gentle rub on his head and tell him good morning. And he rolls over and smiles and goes back to sleep. It’s fine for me to get up in the middle of the night as far as he’s concerned, but he’s not getting up just because I’m up at an uncivilized hour. Same deal with Keeway, except he sleeps on the couch, yeah morning Dad, I’ll get up when it’s breakfast time. Keeway has a breakfast clock that goes off in his stomach exactly 45 minutes before his breakfast which is 07:00.
That’s how Sampson knows it’s time to get up and go out for his walk. So I don’t have to worry about watching the clock when I’m working in the morning. My dogs are my alarm clocks. As soon as Keeway gets up, Sampson get’s up, I get my shoes on and out the door we go at 06:30.
It’s amazing how dead-nuts on accurate (that’s a technical term) Keeway’s breakfast alarm clock is. At 07:05 on Sunday morning, Keeway will butt his head on the bedroom door, open it and come right to over me to let me know, in no uncertain terms and with a certain amount of alarm, that “BREAKFAST IS LATE!”
Sampson is a one very smart dog. He has figured out in one day that the old folks are going to give him more and tastier treats than the crummy old milk bone he gets from the crossing guard. So while he used to make a beeline for the crossing guard one block up, he now heads straight down two blocks to the old folks home. The Beckster, the funny old lady is on fire today. Today, she makes everyone say the “Senility Prayer” which goes like this. “Lord, grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway, the good fortune to run into the ones I do, and the eyesight to tell the difference.”
I swear she must have been in show business when she was younger, because she has the place (and me) in stitches. Once I promised that we would be back on Wednesday, today we are drawing a bigger crowd than ever before. The big news at the old folk’s home is that the old navy guy and the big friendly, Shepaahhd, like we say in Boston, are coming by. So we come into the lobby and there are 30 or more elderly folks all waiting for us. I am overwhelmed with, in an odd twist, with gifts of home-made cookies (of the human sort).
Sampson gets so many cookies (of the healthy dog sort) that he doesn’t even want to finish his breakfast when we get home. This is OK because the cookies are made from basically the same stuff that his dog food is. Which is very healthy stuff.
Sampson will be getting some company this weekend.
Keeway’s Comfy Kennel is getting busy again, after a month or so of our slow season. One of our guests this weekend is a, eeh gaad, Lab puppy! Like all old dogs, Sampson finds puppies annoying. They run around too much, make way too much noise, they are much too bouncy and they just will not lay down even when Sampson tells them to!
One simply cannot get a decent nap with a puppy around!
Be safe.
