Every morning I wake up to a forty five pound alarm clock named Arrow. First comes the rumble, the groan that she makes to see if I open my eyes. Then she begins the pawing of my left arm. Not sure why it is always my left arm with her left paw, but it is. Just like clockwork. If I peek open my eyes she moves in closer. Arrow’s next step in the process is to nuzzle me with her nose and lick me on the cheek. If I tuck my head under the duvet I can escape those morning breath kisses.
Usually that is all it takes and I am awake and struggling to tug the covers up. Then the black tri, Beau, moves in to make sure I am awake. He is a gentleman and always waits until Arrow has done her best. Once Beau, the fifty pound fellow comes up to sit on me I am positively up. So I announce “Let me up” They both spring off the bed and start heading towards the door.
They patiently wait while I put on my coat and my shoes. If patiently means running around me in circles jumping up on me and giving me kisses, then yes, they patiently wait on me. I say the magic words, “do you need to go outside?” At that point they are off, racing and dancing towards the closed bedroom door. They attempt to open the bedroom door in order to lead the way through the house to the back door off of the kitchen. Once they beat me there they jump up and down at the back door until I meet them there with Arrow’s leash in hand.
Arrow must have a leash because she is a runaway. She will escape and only gives a wicked look back over her shoulder as I call her back to me as she darts around the house and out of sight. Therefore, Arrow has to stay on a leash.
Beau is happy to stay in the boundaries of the back yard. He will go no further than the imaginary property line. Somehow he has always known it is there and he respects it. I do not know how he knows there is an invisible property line, we just accept that he knows it.
Beau has only attempted to cross it once and that was when he was being teased by a neighborhood squirrel. Who would be able to resist chasing a running squirrel? He did however stop chasing the squirrel as soon as I called to him to stop. This one fact alone is why he is allowed out without anyone holding a leash.
Arrow has not noticed that invisible line. She has not looked for it and does not understand why Beau doesn’t run off down the street every time he goes outside. Arrow has taken a short vacation from our home on one occasion. She ended up actually only one house away, but the house was a quarter of a mile down the busy road that runs between our house and that house.
Those were a terrible ten days for me. She did not have it so well either. Seems that the little lady that took her in (The same little lady that did not want the flyer I was passing out about my lost dog) decided to keep Arrow for herself. Until that is, Arrow got sick from the chicken and dumplings she was being fed by the neighbor lady. It seems that chicken and dumplings made Arrow a little nauseous. By the time she had returned a weeks worth of chicken and dumplings to the porch of the kindhearted neighbor, the lady was ready to find a posted flyer and call me saying only “Come get your dog”!
We went and retrieved Arrow that moment. Arrow howled and yapped and whimpered for hours after we got her home because she was so glad to be back with her family.
Needless to say, we keep Arrow on a leash for her own good. She doesn’t mind as she seems to enjoy pulling me around the yard willy nilly.
So out we go, everyone knows what they need to do next and the morning has begun. Now we can move on to breakfast, waking the rest of the family and tossing about the toy de jour. Welcome to our morning schedule planned and executed by Arrow the Clockwork Aussie and her trusty sidekick Beau.
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