Sleeping In

One of the things that always made Stephanie and me laugh was that Toby occasionally decided weekends were beneath him. During the week, he was remarkably disciplined. He knew exactly when breakfast happened, exactly when it was time for a walk, and exactly when I had waited long enough before taking him outside. His internal clock was astonishingly accurate.

Weekends, however, seemed to operate under an entirely different set of rules.

Every now and then, Stephanie and I would wake up, make ourselves breakfast, put a movie on, and enjoy a slow morning together. We’d drink our coffee, chat a little, maybe start wondering what we’d do with the rest of the day. After a while, one of us would suddenly realize something was missing.

“Toby’s still sleeping.”

Sure enough, the bedroom remained completely silent.

Not only was he still asleep, but he had absolutely no intention of joining us anytime soon. It was as if he had decided that, after the exhausting workweek he had endured supervising squirrels, monitoring neighbourhood activity from the balcony, and ensuring adequate chicken quality control, he had earned the right to sleep in.

Then, eventually, we would hear it.

Not barking. Not the sound of him jumping off his bed. Just the unmistakable clickety… clickety… clickety… of his nails making their way across the hardwood floor, moving at a pace that could only be described as spectacularly unmotivated.

We would both instinctively turn toward the hallway.

And there he was.

To this day, I still cannot explain how he managed it, but every now and then Toby would emerge from the bedroom with his blanket still draped over him. Somehow, he had stood up from his orthopedic bed, begun walking toward us, and brought half of his bedding along for the journey without noticing.

The sight was absolutely ridiculous.

He looked exactly like a teenager who had just crawled out of bed after sleeping until noon, still wrapped in the comforter because fully waking up seemed like far too much effort. His eyes were barely open, his fur pointed in every conceivable direction, and the blanket hung over his back like an elegant royal cape that had seen better days.

He would slowly shuffle into the living room, stop a few feet from us, and simply stare.

Not excited to see us.

Not asking for breakfast.

Not even particularly interested in what we were doing.

Just standing there with the wonderfully vacant expression of someone whose brain was still trying to remember what day it was.

Every single time, I greeted him exactly the same way.

“Well… nice of you to join us.”

Sometimes I’d add, “Long night?”

Stephanie would laugh, Toby would blink once or twice, and for a few more seconds nothing happened. You could almost imagine the gears slowly turning somewhere behind those sleepy brown eyes.

Then, without warning, everything changed.

His eyes suddenly focused. He seemed to remember that he was, in fact, awake. The blanket was immediately shaken off in one dramatic motion, followed by the full-body shake that every dog owner knows so well. His ears flapped, his curls bounced back into place, and in the span of about two seconds, Toby transformed from a sleepy old retiree into an alert standard poodle.

There was only one problem.

During his luxurious weekend lie-in, he had completely forgotten that biological functions do not sleep in.

The same dog who had spent the previous two hours moving slower than continental drift would suddenly bolt toward the front door with the urgency of someone who had just realized they had made a catastrophic scheduling error.

Watching that transformation never stopped being funny.

One moment he looked like he needed another cup of coffee.

The next, he was desperately informing us that if we did not open the door immediately, there would be consequences.

Classic Toby.

Proof that even a royal poodle occasionally oversleeps… and then immediately regrets it.