Throughout my life I’ve set rather lofty goals for myself.  Usually, I achieve my goals at huge personal sacrifice to myself or to other things going on in my life.  Or I don’t achieve my goals because I am overwhelmed and burned out from trying to accomplish too much, all at once.   Recently, I read a great article by Paul Norwine.  To summarize, he says that rather than setting a series of goals, you should narrow your focus and concentrate on specific goals, one at a time.  This allows you to a) have a life while achieving your goal and b) ups your success factor by a significant percent.  Why?   Well, you won’t be distracted by other goals for one.  Second, you won’t overwhelm yourself or burn yourself out by doing too many new things too quickly.   And god forbid you multi-task because then you may reach your goals but you won’t have paid the attention needed to learn from the process or enjoy the end result.  And frankly, the end result may not be as good or powerful as it would have been with some single-minded determination and focus.

My first goal is teaching the pets about the sacredness of Saturday and  Sunday morning.   I figure it can be done.  It only took me eight of my daughter’s ten years on earth to teach her that waking Mommy before 9 AM on a weekend should only be indulged in when bleeding or because the house is on fire.   Otherwise, the rule of thumb on weekends is for Drue to go to the bathroom, get her own drink of water and then snuggle up in her room, reading, until hearing the inevitable thump and moan that alerts the world that I am up.   Drue has embraced this weekend rule with dignity and grace and even occasionally lets me sleep in until 10.   My pets, however, are a different story.

This is the dog.  His full name is Kodiak Bear Gloege. He’s known as Kodi, the  Bear or simply “Butthead” unless he’s in an all out pee-war with the cat  whereupon he gets called every cuss word that comes into my head in one long  run-on sentence that ends with “Get in  your crate and live in there forever.    Kodi has a lovely habit of waking up every morning at  6:30.    And every morning,  without fail, Kodi will start to blow air through his nostrils resulting in this  high-  pitched nose whistle.  It’s not really a whine – at least not yet – but it is the most  annoying sound you’ve ever heard.  You know that shrill high-pitched noise a fly  makes as it  buzzes by?     Kodi’s nose whistle sounds like that… just an octave  higher and he can  sustain it for ten to fifteen minutes at a time.   Think nails on a chalkboard and you get how annoying this is.   Since we’re  usually up around that time Monday through Friday, Kodi starts his whistle and we accept it  as an inevitable part of waking up, along with noisy alarm clocks and my upstairs neighbors  early morning rap music addiction.  Kodi’s nose whistle is what we call “Level One” on our  scale of early morning pet annoyances.

On weekends, however, the household has learned to roll over quietly and bury our collective heads under our pillows.   We do this quietly because any movement, perceived or otherwise takes Kodi to “Level Two”.   This stage consists of Kodi pawing at his mat and snorting until he creates a bare space on the floor of his crate.   Kodi then channels some of the greats, Bill Robinson and Gregory Hines come to mind, and begins tapping away in his crate.   Yes, my dog tap dances.   And he will tap dance until you throw the covers off in complete exasperation, hiss “I’m awake, Kodi” and proceed to throw on clothes and shoes so you can release the beast and give him what he wants, a long walk outside that allows him to mark every inch of the complex.

On the rare occasions, we are able to quietly hide our heads under our covers and prolong the inevitable, eventually one of two things will occur.   Either 8:00 AM rolls around, sending Kodi into a tap dancing, full out whine frenzy which cannot be ignored OR his nose whistling wakes the cat.  And god help you, well me really, if the dog wakes the cat.

For those of you who have not met her before, this is the cat.   Her name is Mimir  Damnit Gloege, affectionately known as Mimi, Meers, Meercat, Pooh Bear or The  Prettah Kittah.   Mimir received her middle name the first month she lived with us  way back in 2005 after she shredded the side of the box springs, the back of the  sofa and three curtains in two hours flat.   Sadly, I called the cat “Mimir, damnit”  so much, that  when Drue drew her family tree in kindergarten, Mimir was placed  in the  sibling box with  Damnit as her middle name.   The unfortunate result of  that was  that Drue learned  what the word “damnit” meant and I was called in to meet with her teacher and the principal about Drue’s vocabulary.  Oops.    But the middle name stuck and to this day,  when Mimir decides to vex and annoy me or any other member of the family, you hear her name in full, complete with the “D” word.   I guess you could say it stuck.

Like all cats, Mimir likes to sleep.  And unlike most cats, Mimir truly likes Kodi until she doesn’t and then she merely tolerates his presence because house rule number 247 states that she cannot shred every inch of the dog with her claws.   Most of the time Mimir ignores Kodi’s bumblings and, over the last few months, has become an excellent dodgeball player when Kodi decides to chuck slimy, slobbery balls at her in a vain effort to entice her to plaaaay with him.    But mess with kittah’s sleep and you’re in trouble.   So on weekend mornings when I manage to get the pillow over my head with minimal movement and position it in such a way as to drown out Kodi’s whistles, inevitably he wakes the cat.  And the cat stalks in to my room from Drue’s, tail flicking, ready to express her wrath.

It all begins with Mimir pouncing on my bed and sitting by my head and staring at me.   Usually it takes a good two minutes of her staring to get me to lift my head from the pillow, and open one eye to verify that yes, the cat is indeed staring a hole into my very being.   Sometimes, I am able to ignore the stare and continue sleeping, whereupon a small paw will reach out and nudge me as if to say “Hey, are you dead in there?”    If I ignore the gentle nudge, Mimir escalates it to the next level and starts nudging me with her claws.   If any part of my face emerges, Mimir will start nudging at my face over and over, her message simple and clear:  ”if the cat is awake, SO ARE YOU!”   After a few pokes with the claws and face nudges, I accept the inevitable, roll over and get up.  Whereupon Kodi begins his onslaught of tap dancing and whining and the cat, satisfied, stalks back to Drue’s room to sleep away the rest of the morning.    Did I mention Mimir’s middle name is “Damnit” for good reason?

Surely, there must be a way to train these lovely animals to sleep until 8 AM on weekends?    They are smart.  They can tell time.  Kodi always knows when it is 5:00 and time for his evening walk, and when 6:30 rolls around and his kibble is not in his bowl, there are whines and heavy sighs.  Mimir knows when it is 11:45 at night and bedtime; she comes stalking into whatever room I’m in and wedges herself between me and my laptop, book or craft and gives me the death glare until I acquiesce and go to bed.

After spending the better part of an hour Googling “training your pets to sleep in” and wandering through the The Dog Whisperer’s Official Website, I realized there aren’t any articles out there on how to train your pet to sleep in.   I found a few community bulletin boards where various pet owners managed to move their pet’s wake-up times but it seems that dogs, unlike people, have a consistent routine and will go to sleep at night and get up in the morning at the same time.   Since no one in the house sleeps past 7:30 on school mornings, unfortunately that means that Kodi will expect us to have him outside, doing his business by 7:30 each and every single morning.   This includes Saturdays and Sundays.

So I guess I’ve got a new goal… training me to accept that I will not be able to sleep in on Saturdays and Sundays.   And since I’ve been up since 7:00 this morning, and Kodi was walked and fed by 7:30, and the cat has yet to wake up and punch me in the face with her claws, meeting this goal won’t be too terribly hard.    I suspect, however, that since the real winner in the house this morning was Mimir, that this goal is actually her goal and one of many steps in her world domination plan over the silly humans.    Boy, do I feel like a sucker.