Three Weeks In

We are completing our third week with Dog Jake with four more weeks to go. It is time to report on how it’s going  

We are doing lots of walkies with him. We usually take him our mid-morning for a longish walk. By that, I don't mean that we trudge for miles, but we go a little farther than up street and back. The photos in this post are from the day that we walked around to the near park where Sue took more bench photos  

Daytime goes well enough, at least it does once we all up after feeding the beast at 6 or earlier  

The thing is that Dog wants both of us up. So, even if Sue is up first and trying to let me sleep, or vice versa, he will usually find a way to bark the other human awake. After that job is done, he'll go to sleep leaving both humans bright-eyed and bushy-tailed dragging their sorry and bewildered selves about. 

It's to the point where sleeping in until 6 is the goal that eludes us. He is supposed to have his breakfast then, but he's generally up earlier. I take him downstairs and open the back door, but he reneges. So, I lift him up and carry him down the deck into the back yard. I have flashlight in hand and use it to try to highlight the stairs so that he navigate his way back to the house, for doggy doesn't see well.

You get the fact that I (or Sue) have been outside and carrying Dog before 6 in the morning when it is dark and sometimes below freezing and sometimes wet?!

He comes in and gets fed. It takes about three seconds for him to inhale his food. Then, he expects treat rewards for being such a wonderful and clever boy. I give him one treat downstairs, and then he wants another upstairs (they're very small). Unfortunately, he wants more, which he doesn't usually get, and also, he then wants the second human up assuming that second human is still abed, which isn’t always the case as I have previously mentioned. It is difficult for second human to continue to sleep given dog's piercing bark.

As for walkies, we are still working them out. We have a pre-supper walk, usually up the street and back. We eat at 6, and Jake gets fed at 7. Sue goes to bed around 9, and sometime after that I been taking Jake to walk #3. It is pretty late on some nights, and we have gone long on some of those nights.

It's all to tire him out, so we can all sleep during the night. But as I compose this, I have not even managed my meagre 5 hours for 5 consecutive nights. It seems like the night walk may be having the reverse effect of waking him up and is getting him revved up.

The night after he woke up poor Sue at 4 in the morning, I decided to set an alarm on my watch for 5am. Sue needs her sleep more that I, and she was kind of burning the candle at both ends. Recently, he has been sleeping until a little after 5, and I have been awake enough to take him down to at least give Sue another hour. we had only one morning when I was able to keep him quiet, and let Sue sleep until 7. That was good, but it was only one day.

So, that is how it is going, three weeks into this gig.

I will leave you with a composite that Sue made combining both bench photoshoots with a third bench added for good measure.