Melky Day

My dog is used to waking up early. Good old Melky is looking at me now, as I type, wondering when his busy day is going to get started. I wonder what she's thinking as I peck away at the keys because her day will most likely be a mirror image of so many others.

1). Go outside. Together with her partner Paris, Melky has developed an exciting ritual when I open the back door into the fenced in yard. I yell, 'Go get him, he's out there!' and the two of them race through the yard, barking and chasing 'him.'

You'd think after a few hundred days of this they would've caught on.

2). After doing her business, Melk comes to the window and stares in. She knows what's next - food. Or a car ride. "Please, Cliff, please Cliff, please!!! Take me for a ride."

If I'm in a hurry she may not go right away. She will eat her food regardless,and then beg anyone who has a driver's license to take her to the store.

3). Eating. This task takes all of three minutes. The dog eats as if in a frenzy. I know the feeling.

4). That car ride. She sits in the front seat, and her first task is to lick my right arm, as if to say, 'Thanks, Dude. You have no idea how much I needed to get out of that freaking house.'

On the way into the driveway I always say, 'This is where Melky lives.' She's just as excited to get out of the car as she was to get in.

5). Melky immediately stops at the closet door where the rawhide chews are kept. Her partner Paris joins her at the door and they grab the chews and run up the stairs as though it were Christmas morning. Same excited state every day.

6). Three minutes later the rawhide chew is gone.

7). Five minutes after that Melky is back in bed. Snoring. Worn out. 'See you in the afternoon, old dude,' running through her mind.

8). We could learn a lot from dogs. If their life expectancy was longer I'd swap existences with them in a minute.

9). Okay, gotta' go. I just heard her jingling my car keys.