How to Get Don Up for Breakfast – By Big Buddy

Dec 1, 2017

Hi there, it’s Big Buddy again! I really like writing this blog! And thank you so much for your electronic mail letters of support. I hope I don’t let you all down!

Fall is always my favorite time of year. My pollen allergies start to stop. The drier weather means my arthritis doesn’t hurt so much. And we get canned food for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and MY BIRTHDAY! I turned 12 years old on November 29th. I thought I was not going to get a birthday can of dog food because I already had two for Thanksgiving, but I got two cans of dog food on my birthday too! I might be getting fat!

 

Speaking of food, Don usually does a pretty good job feeding us. But some days he spends too long in bed. He will even stay in bed when the sun is out. And us dogs will be starving. Really starving! And some days Don will stay in bed for over an hour after the sun is up. And that’s when Don needs a little help getting out of bed and filling the dog bowls.

You will be happy to know that I put together this list in case you need some help getting Don to fill your food bowl. You deserve an on-time breakfast like any dog! There’s no particular order in the list because I don’t know how to use the Cut and Paste on computers yet.

1) Sometimes I will get worried that Don will forget to fill my food bowl. So I will go in to check on him in the middle of the night. My super-long toenails will “clack clack clack” on the hardwood floor as I go in and out of the room dozens of times to check on him. Sometimes Don will yell “GO LIE DOWN, BUDDY!” and that’s when I know Don won’t forget breakfast in the morning. So I’ll only check a couple dozen more times.

2) Maybe this will help you get breakfast on time. I have no trouble with Max and Auggie. That’s why we dont fight. But Max and Auggie fight all the time. Max and Auggie will playfight – growling and jumping and trying to pin each other on the ground. It goes on for hours and hours and sometimes Don will have to close the bedroom door so he can sleep through the time he should give us breakfast. But if the fighting goes on long and loud enough, Don will run out of the bedroom and yell “KNOCK IT OFF!!!” at us (Editor’s Note: I don’t yell at Buddy). About 50% of the time Don will bust out the kibble. The other 50% of the time he will go back into the bedroom and close the door really hard. When he does that, he won’t feed us until After-Walkies-Treat-Time. And then After-Walkies-Treat-Time never happens.

3) When my pollen allergies are acting up, I get really itchy and I need to scratch really bad. What better way to scratch an itch and wake Don up than to go into Don’s bedroom and scratch myself for hours on end? Don hears my ID tags go “JANGLE JANGLE JANGLE….” until he wakes up and gives me breakfast. Sometimes Max and Auggie will join in and Don will get up faster. Honestly, it’s not as good as having someone else scratch my itches, but sometimes you have to do what you can to get breakfast on time.

4) All us dogs cough. Sometimes theres no reason to cough, but we cough anyway. Max will sit peacefully for hours and cough all of a sudden like he’s got a firecracker in the bottom of his lung. And it’s loud. Very Loud. It wakes people up even if they’re in the next county. Don is much closer than the next county. I’m not as good as either Max or Auggie at coughing, but I have been practicing. And what better place to practice than right next to Dons head when breakfast is late? The best part is that when I start practicing, Max and Aug will come in to help me practice. Don is up and serving breakfast in no time!

5) Sometimes I get worried about Don and I do everything I can to wake him up for breakfast and I still don’t have breakfast. Sometimes the sun is gets really bright and I don’t have breakfast. So if Don is sleeping past breakfast and his face is facing the wall, I will walk right up to him and put my snout as close as I can to his face. I will stare at him for a long time. (Editors Note: Buddy’s dank, morning-breath is the most awful thing I’ve ever experienced). He looks so peaceful. If nothing happens I lick him on the face because I love him and not even because of breakfast. But Don will be furious and I think he gives you less kibble for breakfast than usual when he’s furious.

6) Don hates repetitive annoying sounds. Especially when they’re dogs licking themselves obsessively. And I lick myself obsessively all the time. I have a gigantic tongue and it is very loud. It is easy for me to lick myself with extra slurping. It is hard for Don to sleep through extra slurping especially when I plant myself on the floor next to him. I know I’m helping him wake up for breakfast because he will yell “BUDDY!!!!” and throw his pillow at me. I don’t even fetch!

7) This is a doozy. Use it only if you are looking at the difference between having breakfast and being yelled at, and not having breakfast and being hungry. Knock the trashcan over. Don will come running out of the bedroom and he will be very angry. There is a small chance he will give you breakfast since he is up. But don’t count on it. He will be angry because he will have to pick up all the garbage you just put on the floor, but he might give you breakfast because he wants to be done with you and go back to sleep.

8) Only use this next trick when the sun is out and you’re worried Don might be dead. Go get one of the many large old dog bones in the toy basket by the TV. Then walk into the bedroom and drop the bone on the hardwood floor near Don’s head. It is guaranteed to wake him up, but he will be unpredictable. Sometimes he will mutter something I can’t hear and get out of bed. Other times he will swear loudly and squeeze the pillow over his ears, and sometimes he will jump out of bed and yell at me. If I get no reaction, I start gnawing on the bone, making sure to drop it often for a better grip. And slurping it like a maniac helps.

9) One time Don was asleep for such a long time and I was so hungry. Don had the pillow over his ears because I was slurping on an old dog bone and trying to get him up and he wasn’t getting up. I had no choice but to smack him in the face with my paw. He sat straight upright and stared at me for a long time. He touched his face and got out of bed to fill our bowls. It was still dark.

Then he went back to bed.

Thanks for reading this far!

-Big Buddy Dog