Chewing through the leather straps

So During the week, and on Saturday the dog starts to wake me up around 4am. These are not just playful nudges, but full body flops and bounces on to my chest. I make her lay back down, and she is good until it seems like “forever” has gone by. (about 5 minutes) and the routine starts over again. Once in a while (on a Saturday) I’ll massage her side, or rub her belly and she starts grunting like a pig/orangutan thing. This generally wake up Da Wife so I don’t do it too often.

This is all because she wants to be fed.  I do not feed her until 5am at the earliest. She also has a bowl of dry food that apparently is completely invisible unless I am within eyesight.  Now I can understand if she needed to go outside to go to the bathroom at 4am. This is reasonable. When I let her out at 4am however, she sits on the deck, sniffs the air a bit, and wants back in…and to be fed.

A few weeks ago I started walking/running in the mornings and bringing her with me. She is horrible with other dogs so 5:30ish is a good time to go. This has had the added bonus of adding a second dog alarm to the morning. There is now no chance to go back to bed. If I attempt, I get flopped on and moaning ensues. She seriously sounds like an attention wanting elderly individual moaning on their perpetual “death bed”. One paw even comes up by her head. Oh the drama!

So I get my ass moving, and walk/run the dog. The dog who cannot seem to walk or run in a straight line. It’s not like she’s looking at all the scenery and not paying attention to where she’s going either. She looks straight ahead. It’s as if her front left paw is low on air. she just drifts to the left. Unfortunately for me I am right handed so that means she drifts under foot. I imagine if I was left handed, the air would be low on the right foot. We do this Chico and Harpo act for about 20 minutes at this point. I’m not up for much more than that yet. I’ve got 30 years of NOT running to work on.

When we get back, this is what I see for the rest of the day.

crashed dog