I’m nearly always the first one up in the morning. Jen’s dog Winston never fails to hear my bedroom door open and close, no matter how quietly I think I’m doing so. He comes around the corner to our hallway and greets me enthusiastically. It’s not a bad way to wake up every morning.

Because I’m up, I take care of his morning routine. The routine consists of a visit outdoors (with which I accompanying him because it’s still dark outside and we have critters that could carry him away). Then we come inside and I give him his breakfast. He eats it immediately, and then looks at me for his morning chewy bone. He carefully takes the bone back to Jen’s bedroom where he consumes it and likely falls back asleep.

However, the other morning, rather than taking the bone back to the bedroom, for reasons only he understands, he decided to hide it. By this time both Bill and Jen had gotten up, and we observed him trying to figure out a place where it would be safe, at least in his mind. He tried under the pillows, which required him to use his nose to push the pillow over the bone. He apparently decided that wasn’t hidden well enough. He walked around some more, deep in thought. Finally, he jumped back up on the couch, and got onto the top cushion. Before we knew it, he dropped the bone behind the couch.

Friends, his body language was hilarious. You could tell that he was thinking, “Well, that didn’t work out as well as I thought it would.” He jumped off the sofa, and went to both sides to see if he could retrieve his treasure, but it was to no avail.

Bill finally found pity on him, and moved the sofa out from the wall so that Winston could run in and get the bone. We were all laughing so hard by that time that he took the bone back to the bedroom and did who knows what with it.

One of the best things about a dog is that they never fail to make you smile.

Have a great weekend.