My Dogs Hate Me and My Sleep

For anyone who doesn’t know, I have two dogs.  Two very small dogs.  They are the type of dogs that really say something (uncool) about the person who owns them.  I am hyper aware of this fact, so usually when people ask me what kind of dogs I have, I end up sounding something like this:  “I live in an apartment so the dogs have to be small and oh yeah, I adopted one of them, and please don’t judge me I am not “that” girl, Ihaveayorkieandchihuahua.”  Porky the Yorkie and Chopper the Chihuahua, specifically.  Collectively, they are known as the Pork Chop.

Now, listen.  I love these dogs.  I am sure that future blog posts will be full of how funny it was when Chopper…I don’t know…did something funny.  Or how adorable Porky is when she adorabled around.

However.

I am currently under the impression that these two little dogs were put on this planet and subsequently under my care as some sort of huge cosmic plan to make sure I never get enough sleep.  You might be wondering, “How do two little dogs conspire to make sure Kristi always is awake before 7:30!?!  That is crazy talk!”  Let me explain about my last few mornings…

So there I am.  Peacefully sleeping and dreaming about nothing in particular, when I am rudely awakened by a little Yorkie scratching the pillow next to my head.  As usual, this is the signal that Porky wants to get up and go to the bathroom.  Also as usual, I ignore her.  She then ups the ante, moving her scratching from beside my head to scratching IN MY HAIR.  This hurts, so I normally like to move to the far end of the bed, away from her.  She is relentless, so she simply walks over to where I am now sleeping, and resumes scratching my hair like she is digging her way THROUGH my hair AND the bed to the floor below.  Normally this is where I have a thought something like this, “Maybe if I can somehow get her interested and digging her way through Blake’s hair, she will leave me alone and HE will wake up and take the dogs out.”  This NEVER happens.  Blake can snore his way through a million little Yorkies industriously digging his hair out of his scalp.  Porky usually turns her attention towards Blake for about 10 seconds, and getting no reaction comes back to me.

Ok, now, a little bit about Chopper.  He is USUALLY my ally and friend in the sleep department.  Chopper LOVES sleeping.  He burrows under the covers like a little mole and doesn’t come back out until I get up and bring his leash over to him.  He growls at Porky when she begins her annoying hair digging, and I reward him with lots of petting while we both determinedly try to ignore the little instigator.

But, for the last few mornings, he has turned traitor.  After Porky has been digging and licking my hair and face for about ten minutes while I squeeze my eyes shut and pretend like I am still asleep, Chopper has peeked his little head out from under the covers.  He then decides (I guess) something like, “HEY!  Fun!  Hair digging!  I want to attack Porky now!!”  And so he does.  The two start rolling around ON TOP OF ME, play fighting.  Still thinking I might be able to win this battle, I throw the covers over my head and try to go back to sleep with two 8 pound dogs growling and rolling around on top of me.  Obviously, this does not work.

And then I hear it.  Two little thuds, which mean the dogs have jumped off the bed.  At this point, I have two options.  Get up and take the dogs out before they go to the bathroom all over my carpet, or I can claim victory and worry about cleaning the carpet later and fall back asleep.

Today, I decided on the former.  After shooting Chopper a look meant to convey, “et tu, Chopper?”  I drag myself out of bed, and walk my dogs through downtown at the grand hour of 6:45 am.  On a Saturday.  They win.