Marley in the Morning

All of my life, our dogs have been somewhat mellow in the morning. Happy to see you, anxious to go outside, but willing to wake up slowly or lay around for a bit until you've rubbed those annoying sleepy crunchies out of your eyes. Cua is more than content to let us sleep in all summer and each Saturday. (She's let me sleep until 1 p.m. before! She's a good sleeper...) Each morning, she wakes up, goes outside, and curls up next to the couch. She'll wait for hours before she demands breakfast.

This is not the case with Marley. (That's an understatement!) He woke up at 1:30, 4:30, 5:30, and 6. Each time he was convinced that it was time for us all to play! At 6 when we finally rolled out of bed, he was more than happy to see us! It took several moments to get my feet on the ground because there was a little white blur jumping and yipping around me. Cua growled and snapped at his perky greeting. (She's clearly not a morning dog!) Marley insits on5r4a23sd Oh look! Marley climbed on the lap top and licked the keys... Let's try this again! :) Marley insists on greeting you face to face and eating your pants, fingers, toes, nose - whatever he can get close to. This morning he actually bit my ear! As we get up and get the day moving along, he gives up any form of walking and runs all over the house. He'll run laps around the house with his toys, your sock, the flip flops from the closet, the paper towel you didn't pick up before it hit the ground... You get the idea! For example, this morning he was running around with his twisted rope giraffe and it got caught underneath him. He went tumbling head over heels for several complete flips! It didn't phase him at all. He just kept right on running!! While we sit down on the couch and eat breakfast, he runs from across the room and leaps onto our heads. (Not our laps, our heads!) We have to act fast in order to save the food from his hyper-activity. This morning I was trying to get him off the couch and he just sat up like a human. He was trying so hard to stay on the couch with us! We often comment that he's a very cute dog - when he's alseep.

Now that he's had breakfast and has run an equivalent of 2.6 miles he's curled up next to me on the couch. I could drop kick him to the next county and he won't wake up. (Not that I plan on drop kicking him anytime soon. But I could if I wanted and he totally wouldn't know it!!) How is that fair? He wakes us up all night long and then sleeps when I need to be up and doing stuff.

We've also come up with several new names for him in the past few weeks. He is now Lickey McLickerson, Hyper McHyperson, Dorky McDorkerson, Whiney McWhinerson, and Crazy McCrazerson. Likewise, Cua is Snobby McSnoberson and Crabby McCraberson. We seem to be lacking some creativity... But that's okay! We have fun with it!