Lola is a morning dog. She starts whining and barking from her crate somewhere between 5-6am every morning. As soon as she wakes, she wants out and if I’m lucky, she’ll follow me back to bed and lay down with us for awhile. After she licks TW and Skeeter and her own butt for awhile.
If I’m not lucky, she’ll lick her butt for a really long time by which point I’ll be fully awake and annoyed and have to get up. She, however, will stay in bed with TW and Skeeter — happily licking whatever is handy until she falls asleep again.
An hour or so later, she’s up again for real. If I’ve been in the office without her, she’ll cha-cha in like she hasn’t seen me in years and try to lick me all over. I’ll take her out where she will stalk squirrels or ants, whatever is awake along with her.
We’ll come back in — I’ll go back to my desk, she’ll go find a bone or antler and lay down on the quilt in the office and lick whatever’s handy. She might doze a little bit. Maybe. Not for long, though.
And as soon as Skeeter is awake, she’s going full throttle. Skeeter, however, is not.
Skeeter would be more than happy to lay in bed forever and only gets up because TW forces her up. Skeeter would be happy to go outside and pee, sniff for wild things for a minute, and then head right back to bed.
Lola doesn’t understand that. As soon as she sees Skeeter, it’s play time. She runs, expecting Skeeter to chase her. She pounces, expecting Skeeter to snarl and pounce back. She grabs Skeeter’s ear or leg our jowls and Skeeter is not happy about any of this.
It’s too early for this madness, in Skeeter’s opinion.
When they go back in the house, Lola heads straight for the toy bin. She grabs a toy, looks at Skeeter — expecting her to come after it. Nothing. So Lola will take the toy to where Skeeter is laying and plop down next to her, chewing it. Expecting Skeeter to try and take it away. Nothing.
So Lola pulls out the big guns. The bones. Or the antlers.
She’ll go find one and then prance by Skeeter, not looking at her (except looking at her out of the corner of her eye) and that will do it. Skeeter will give in and the chase begins… and everything is fine until about 9pm.
That’s when Lola is DONE and Skeeter is not. That’s when Lola has to be forced out of bed to pee and when Skeeter has to resort to bones and antlers to entice her to play.
I wonder if the two of them will ever get their play schedules in sync?
I sometimes think that Koto is laughing from his grave. Remember when Skeeter was a morning dog and Koto was NOT? Poor old guy, just wanted to pee and rest for a few more hours.