It was a frustrating morning with Chester this morning. I’ve slowly been increasing the time before I take him out first thing in the morning, so that he gets back to his normal time.

It’s interesting, actually, when I get him up at 6 am or thereabouts he’s not all that eager to go out. He’s happy enough to, but I suspect he’d be equally as happy to still be snoozing in his bed. When I go to give him breakfast, about an hour later, he can’t wait to get out of his crate and is just bursting with energy.

Anyway, all that went fine. I played with him some inside, because the problem I’ve been running into is that he really doesn’t need to go right after he eats breakfast. When it’s dry out, that’s fine, I can just let him explore the backyard while I read. But it’s been dewy lately, and neither he nor I have been keen to stay out there.

So he didn’t want to go when I took him back out around 8 am (almost 2 hours after the first time, and after breakfast). But when we came back inside, he was happy to curl up again in his bed for a while.

The really frustrating part was when I took him back out around 9:30 am. Surely by this point he would need to go — but no! Some days he just defies his norms, but how am I supposed to know that ahead of time? So off the the farmer’s market we go.

The farmer’s market is a great place for socialization, with both humans and dogs, and Chester got plenty today. Lots of kids petting him, lots of dogs to snif up. It’s a warm day, though, and he was really tuckered out by the time we left about an hour later — which is exactly what I wanted. The farmer’s market replaced his morning walk today, and he gets socialized for free! He finally went on our way out.

When we got back home, I was surprised to find Simba esconced in the bathroom. As I said, it’s a warm day today. Simba lives for warm weather, and he loves to just lay out there, panting away. But today he’s been holed up in the bathroom all day long. I’ve no idea why. He definitely doesn’t appear sick; I guess he just wanted to mix things up.

Normally when my husband is out of town I have trouble sleeping the first few days. Apparently a puppy is the cure for that. I’m so wiped out at the end of the day, I fall right asleep no problem — not to mention I’m staying up later than I normally do, but getting up the same time (Gizmo makes sure of that; he’s picked up a few bad habits over the years).

I keep telling myself that people do this all the time . . . they live alone, work, and have cats and dogs . . . why does Chester seem to eat up all my time, then? I know now why people install doggy doors . . . but that won’t even work for us, because the cats can’t be allowed to roam at will out back.

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