crossing time zones

Once routines like eating, sleeping and playing were initially established, the young Starbuck quickly set his internal alarms. Without fail, the internal alarm mechanism was able to remember important daily activities for the Buckster, within a few minutes of the official time standard.

The external alarm mechanism, his non-stop barking, only went off if no one else in the vicinity (me) was attuned to the system and was, therefore, late. There was no "snooze" function on the external alarm system and the only way to appease it was to accomplish the scheduled event. If, by chance, the event occurred earlier than scheduled, there was no apparent objection to a crinkle in the time-space continuum.

As the Buckster aged, his internal alarm became less reliable. Breakfast, originally at 6:00 am, could be anywhere from 3:00 to 6:00 am. Dinners, originally at 6:00 pm, ranged from 3:00 pm to 6:00 pm with 3:00 pm being the preferred time. You often hear jokes about our geriatric parents starting to eat breakfast the night before and I guess dogs must not be too different. He starting living in Pacific Standard Time.

As the alarms became more erratic and the response not as immediate (especially at 3:00 am), the Buckster had to invent new methods to effect the desired result. Here are a few of the newer methods:

• Barking 1" away from my ear
• Jumping up on the bed, sniffing my ear to see if it was still working, jumping down. Repeat until the desired effect is achieved 
• If an extraneous limb protruded beyond the imaginary vertical plane of the bed, support the limb in his mouth

These were all fine with me. It could have been much worse. My ex had a cat that used to squeeze my head between her claws like a melon and then bite me on the crown of my head at 5:00 am to get breakfast going.