This is the way the world works

Dogs are funny creatures! Like most animals, dogs are very much creatures of habit, and if you do something a certain way for 3 days, usually by the 3rd day the dog has that habit figured out. I'm not talking potty training, I'm talking OTHER things. Here are some examples:

During the week, the dogs have "last outs" at night somewhere around 10:00. When the come back in they all crash, except for Roman who stares at me with the "I wanna go to bed now." look. Then  when Dean gets up at 4:30 in the morning he lets the dogs out, then puts a pot of coffee on, then lets the dogs in. Roman goes back to his kennel, and Dudley, Zurri and Rubee crash on the bedroom floor. Then, when I get up at 6:45 everyone goes out again, only they stay out until Angela leaves for school.

But weekends are different, and Dean has been sleeping in lately. Unfortunately the dogs don't understand "weekends". It doesn't matter that they had last outs at midnight. 4:30 is 4:30 people, and that's when the should go out! Usually it's Dudley sticking his "Barney" stuffie in my face. "Mom...Barney and I want to go out, and so does everyone else!" all the while is tail is thumping Roman's kennel, waking Roman up. LOL  (and yes, this is Angela's old Barney that Dudley is carrying around.) I respond with "Dudley, go lay down. It's not time yet."

So Dudley lays back down, as do Zurri and Rubee. Roman will let out a long "Oh fine!" sigh from his kennel and everyone goes back to sleep. When Dean does finally get up, he does his usual morning routine. Here's where it gets annoying...

When I get up 15 minutes later, all the dogs are dancing around to go outside, because...you know...that's the routine! I get up, I let them out! Never mind they were JUST OUT! That doesn't matter. Instead they're acting like it's been HOURS, and they're going to burst if I don't let them out. So...out they go.

Then there is the "You're home!" routine. You see, as you may have guessed from reading above dogs don't have a concept of time. So, if I leave and I'm gone for 5 hours, I get a great greeting when I come in the door! Dudley runs to grab is stuffie, Rubee grabs a shoe, Zurri tries to get to the front of the pack to sniff me all over and see where I've been. (and maybe I'm coming from dogs school, in which case I smell like 50 other dogs AND have a pocket full of treats! LOL) And Roman spins at my feet hoping I'll pick him up to say hello. 

Now, lets say I just walk down to the mailbox and am gone for just 5 minutes? Yeah, I get the EXACT same greeting! LOL One thing I know for sure, my dogs sure miss me when I'm gone!