Mornings with Sky

Every morning I wake up to a forty-five pound dog licking my face. That is Sky’s ritual way of greeting me, telling me she needs to go outside. If I try to push her aside, she whimpers and paws at my face. One morning she even scratched me without meaning to. I was not happy that morning. Eventually, I push the covers aside and she wiggles and jumps off the bed, squirming in delight. Sometimes she even omits a playful puppy-like bark, but she never fails to give a little jump in the air as I reach for the door to the hallway.
Bounding down the stairs, clumsy Sky often slips and falls on the hardwood floor. Her nails grow quickly and have already started clicking against the grain again. It is interesting to watch in the early morning as the sun’s rays haven’t fully come up to illuminate the house or her antics, but she sure seems to make herself known.
Sky has already become trained on our Dogwatch invisible fence, so she waits by the door and gets her collar put on with a wiggle of impatience. Once outside she greats the old Aussies before I do, then runs the length of the back drive. I smile knowing she’ll save the major play for after breakfast.
Going back in I feed my two old black tri Aussie Mixes, then take Sky in before she can steel their’s. I call her my “Kibble Theif” because she is always raiding the other animal’s feed bowls as if she is still starving (which she is NOT). Twenty minutes later we return back out, after Sky and I have both have breakfast we take another walk, this time we enjoy ourselves. We play for a bit with the other Aussies before heading off for a run on a gravel road or taking a trail through the woods to a near by lake. There are several fields back behind our house, and there I let Sky off her lead to run flat out if she so chooses, but often she just trots by my side, quite content and tired after a run. Sky has become a content dog and she’s even learning to tolerate the cats. . .most of the time.

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