Mondays always mean I am dragging my butt because I don’t sleep well Sunday night. My slumber is interrupted several times by sudden wakefulness and it’s not because I have to pee – again. I am not a particularly anxious person. My mother once commented, as she marched into Walmart like she was going to war and not just shopping, that I will certainly never die of a heart attack. I am a stroller, easily distracted by shiny things. So other than having to pee a couple times a night thanks to this little thing called “I-am-almost-50” I sleep pretty well. But not on Sunday nights. I used to battle it but now just accept it. When the alarm goes off and I have hit snooze half a dozen times I get out of bed and hope the teenagers at the school where I work have had a wild weekend and are just as tired as I am.

We have a routine around here. A very ingrained routine which is entirely thanks to the dogs and definitely not me. My alarm clock goes off which is Oni’s cue to pace up and down the hallway. On floors that have no carpet. With very long nails. Tappity, tappity, tappity, tap. Over and over and over again. Every once in a while she changes it up and comes into the bedroom, finds some exposed skin and jams her cold, wet, very cold, very wet nose against it. What follows is not for G-rated audiences.

Spud, the fattest and slowest Alaskan Husky in the history of huskies, who has silently crawled onto the bed and pinned my legs, sleeps on.

Wooley, the Malamute pup, stands at the side of the bed and stares. And breathes, And stares. If too much time passes before I move he licks my eyelids which is gross. Again, what follows is not for G-rated audiences.

Imagine ignoring this in the morning while he stares and breathes!

And Spud sleeps on.

This is what Spud looks like when his afternoon nap is interrupted by, gasp, one of his nieces!

Tappity tap. Tappity tap. Stare. Breath. Lick. Snore. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I finally decide to get up which finally gets Spud moving. Admittedly I need to push his fat butt off the bed. Colonel, who is ancient, blind and deaf hears us at last and starts barking non-stop. He doesn’t know why. It’s just exciting.

I make it to the kitchen and turn on the coffee, let the dogs out and hit the shower. And here’s where things took a turn for the worst. As I was toweling off I could hear the dogs outside going nuts. Barking, Howling, Crap! I throw on sweats, boots and head outside with wet hair that quickly stiffens in the cold. I shine the light behind the trees where the dogs are looking, fully expecting to see a moose but nope, it looks like a fox. And I hear a distressed chicken. Great!

I round everyone up and bring them inside. Grab the rifle and head back outside. I tromp through the snow. Now I have a torn hamstring and a calf muscle so it wasn’t exactly tromping. It was more like limp, cuss, limp, cuss. I shine the light again and it’s not a fox. It’s Pepe who is an old, retired dog – normally living in the pen with his buddy Bob. Except this morning Pepe has apparently discovered his second wind in life and has scaled the fence and then broke into the chicken coop, snatched a chicken and headed for the trees. Idiot dog!!

Pepe last summer before heading to the retirement pen.

I spend several minutes practicing the theory that it’s not what you say but how you say it. Finally he drops the chicken, which is now dead and comes to me. I tie him up next to Solo and check out the coop. Two more dead chickens. Aaarrgghhh! I limp back inside, boots full of snow, hair frozen and late for work. Sometimes it just doesn’t pay to get out of bed.