[Dailydrool] Well, they've got me trained

[dpmcquade at verizon.net]

Bo and Harley should consider themselves blessed to get fed on such regular, early schedules. Here in the Dashing Basset household, it all depends on when the mama gets to bed and when she is ready for breakfast. Usually in the early morning I try to do some household things before I eat, or I read and respond to e-mails or get a bit of work done on an editing or writing project. Early hours are the best to get those out of the way. After I eat, the hounds eat. Same with our dinner schedule. Since I work for myself and at home, I'm often on a zany schedule, and the dogs have to live with that.

I can resist hound complaints, but not the cat's. Until I get him fed, Duncan Thefairlyuselessc at t, as Jane called him, will knock around my dearest treasures (he especially likes basset figurines and sewing objects, and the Mason jars I keep some thread and other objects in fall with a very satisfying thud). So he gets fed before anyone else. It's his only real privilege in this house, so the dogs put up with it.

The dogs would be fed before me, if it didn't make them so bossy. One of the few "rules" of training I believe in is this: Humans eat first, so they get top spot in the pack order. The boys probably don't care, but Holly would run all over me if I let her eat first.

That doesn't mean they don't try to get fed at five o'clock each night, at least when they first come here, but after a while they catch on to the schedule. No one has missed a meal in this home, unless there was a canine medical emergency, so they know the food is coming. Even with emergencies, they just get fed later.
 
However, during Horton's potty training, I have been getting up at zero dark thirty to get him out the door before he has an accident. The good news is that he's almost there with that. He's got peeing down pat--now if we can just get him out the door with the poops, especially before Holly takes a nosh.
Pam, food slave to the Dashing Bassets