I finally, somewhat, mostly got Bruce on a morning routine. I let him out of the crate, we go outside, he does his business, we go have some breakfast, Annie comes downstairs, Bruce attempts to hump her, he gets smacked on the nose, pees on the floor, chases Squeaky, sits on the couch, chews a bone, and then gets put back in his crate with food and water so that I can escape to work. It's a messy whirlwind of a routine, but at least it's a routine. That all changed this weekend. Because my brother and his wife are moving between states and don't have a permanent residence at the moment, we are taking care of their dogs for an undetermined amount of time. So I went from being the puppy-mama to a toddler to the temporary puppy-mama of a depressed, sullen teenager (Seamus) and to a pre-teen prissy diva (Gaucho). This was how my morning went today. I woke up and went to get Bruce out of his crate. Normally he is wide awake and walks out of the crate on his own. Today, he was all the way in the back (too far for me to easily grab him) still half asleep. I urged him to get up and come toward me so we could go outside. His response was to yawn, stretch, lick his paw, and look at me. Not helping. So I left him alone to go the other two pups. Seamus, would barely look at me. He loves my brother so much that he get extremely down when they are apart. Gaucho, the prissy pre-teen just wanted me to pet her belly and tell her she was beautiful, but she wouldn't come downstairs either. At that time, Bruce had made his sleepy-head way out of crate so I took him out to do his business. I put him back inside, went upstairs, grabbed Gaucho and took her outside. She took forever. I can imagine her as a prissy, pre-teen human hogging the bathroom to primp. Seamus eventually ventured downstairs to look longingly out the front door for my brother. He then went right back upstairs and I swear I heard him mutter "No one loves me, I hate the world." If Seamus was human, he would have slammed the door to his room and played Radiohead while drawing angry stick figures on the wall. I finally got Gaucho to come back inside and she went up to her room to revel in her prettiness. Meanwhile, Bruce is still a cute toddler who has discovered his penis and like to hump everything. I rushed out of the house, running five minutes late, shouting orders to Sam. Feed the cat, give Seamus his pill, he hasn't gone outside so make sure he does even if you have to physically carry him, love you, bye.
I have turned into the canine version of the crazy mom that yells at everyone to get up, pulls children out of bed, throws clothes on them, tosses cereal into bowls, shoves sandwiches into bags, and then deposits the children at the school, before speeding off to work in sweatpants and a different color heel on each foot.
