Mornings With Lucas

As many of you know, Lucas is what is called an "inside/outside" dog. He lives outside, but is allowed inside to play every now and then. He also has his own bed in the house where he sleeps at night. Dogs, like humans, often have the urge to "go" in the mornings right after waking up. Many people who let their dogs in at night know that letting the dog out is a main priority in the morning if you don't want an extra puddle to up clean up first thing in the morning.

Lucas is a strange one when it comes to morning routines. Unlike most dogs, his first urge in the morning isn't "gotta go, gotta go, gotta go right now!" It's more like "BREAKFAST TIME!!!!!". Lucas lives for his food.

Chris doesn't mind getting up early to feed Lucas when he decides it's breakfast time, be it 6 am or 8 am. I, on the other hand, enjoy staying in bed until at least 7 am before I'll give into his incessant head shaking (with those floppy ears, head shaking is extremely loud in the morning). As you also may know, Chris is a fireman and isn't always home every morning. Lucas knows that we react differently to his waking us up. On mornings when Chris is home, Lucas will wake up at 6 am, shake his head and then run over to the door and wait for Chris to get up and let him outside for breakfast. On mornings when Chris isn't home, Lucas will usually stay in bed until I decide to get up. On work days that's usually 7 am, and on some off days, it can be anywhere from 7 to 8:30 am.

This morning, however, was different. Lucas, foregoing his usual rule of waiting for me to wake up on my own, decided he really wanted outside at 6:30 am. He woke up, shook his head, and I told him to go back to bed. Which he reluctantly did, but he kept making random noises the whole time not letting me fall back into a deep sleep. About 15 minutes later he got up again and came over to my side of the bed to wake me up. He was very persistent and as soon as he realized my eyes were open he ran over to the bedroom door. I figured he probably actually had to go to the bathroom for once, and was being a good boy and telling me about it as opposed to relieving himself by the closet door (again).

So I got out of bed, pulled on my robe and opened the door. He ran down the stairs full speed and went right to the back door, which only encouraged my thought that he just really needed to go. So I walked quickly down the stairs, unlocked the door and he ran out.... only to turn right around and look up at me expectantly. He just wanted food. He thought he won until I closed the door in his face and walked back up stairs. I figured he could wait another 15 minutes or so until I was ready to wake up.

When he saw me coming down the stairs again he got very excited (BREAKFAST TIME!!!!!). So I walked over to the back door, opened it and grabbed his food bowl. Walked back through the house to the garage, scooped some food in his bowl and walked back into the house. He saw me coming out of the garage and got so excited he went to go run around the backyard in exultation (he lives for food). Since he had run out of sight of the back door, I decided to tease him and I hid from sight instead of going to the back door right away with his food. He ran back to the back door expecting me to be there and looked through the glass trying to find me. He looked left, right, up, and down. Then he ran to the other side of the house to look through the window over where my desk is to see if I was there. Then back to the back door, then back to the window. I could barely contain my laughter as he did this a few more times. I finally felt bad and let him have his breakfast, which he ate very politely with minimum drool.

Lucas is such a strange dog, but I love him.