{"id":6447,"date":"2026-05-26T08:37:47","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T06:37:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=6447"},"modified":"2026-05-26T08:37:47","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T06:37:47","slug":"morning-dog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=6447","title":{"rendered":"Morning Dog"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Mornings can be hard for a morning person. You see, a lot of my universe centers around the fact that I get up early. I get up early, I do my writing early, I work out early. And so before I leave for work, I have accomplished these things. The hinge factor here is \u2013 you guessed it \u2013 getting up early.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem is, I am not necessarily a morning person. I am more not<\/em> an afternoon person. I write and work out in the morning because I can\u2019t reasonably accomplish them in the afternoon.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh, I enjoy doing these activities \u2013 or as Mark Twain said, I enjoy having done<\/em> these activities. But my day-to-day is pretty tiring, so if I don\u2019t write or work out in the morning, the chances of them happening later in the day are in line with Donald Trump getting a fourth presidential term and me voting for him. With each passing hour and its new mini-soul-crushing defeat, my motivation and discipline take another shot of ain\u2019t-gonna-happen juice at the metaphorical sadness pub in my thorax. And if I go a few days without working out or writing, well I start having gamey fantasies the likes of which would garner the attention of medical professionals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so \u2013 for my sanity \u2013 I do it in the morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I feel cheated, because I don\u2019t have the morning person experience. That experience? Well, let\u2019s imagine a genuine, card-carrying morning person. They\u2019re up before their alarm dancing and singing ABBA songs into one of the croissants they\u2019d baked in the wee hours. Their minds are awake, aware, alert, and ready to create or produce by 5 am. They look good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not me, no. When my alarm goes off, I let out a whimper and evolve myself out bed like the creature of the Black Lagoon. I put clothes on backwards; I retrain my body how to walk and reach for things. Then I stumble around and question my life choices. Good morning!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have a dog. It\u2019s a shih tzu with crooked teeth who sleeps in bed with us where she grooves herself around things \u2013 pillows, legs \u2013 like a hairy jigsaw puzzle piece. Long ago, I noticed that this dog awoke each morning as though someone had snuck in and injected her with 1000 ccs of whatever acts as doggy caffeine. My alarm goes off and she jumps up and hops around and licks us and just seems to be in a state of absolute and utter joy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

I have always found this wonderfully charming. However, like most self-involved goons, I couldn\u2019t see past the sweetness of it and into the little life lesson being delivered every morning right in my own bed. This dog wakes up every day just thrilled to be part of our little pack. It\u2019s like she can\u2019t believe her good fortune, and she is abounding with gratitude.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Great Anubis! Here I am! Again! Oh wow, look \u2013 it\u2019s my mom and my dad! They\u2019re both here! I am so happy! Whoa! What a great day!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I know this is an old lesson from dogs, but it\u2019s a good one. We dumb humans are too prone to moaning about the immediate discomforts or everyday stresses that we fail to see the big picture: it\u2019s amazing that we\u2019re here, it\u2019s amazing that we get to spend time with awesome people we love, it\u2019s incredible that we have homes and beds and dogs in those homes and beds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, my dog might have crooked teeth and she may be prone to eye infections, and she may occasionally step in her own poop, but she\u2019s a trusted advisor to this particular old man in the areas of outlook, appreciation, and how to not cry in the morning.   <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mornings can be hard for a morning person. You see, a lot of my universe centers around the fact that I get up early. I get up early, I do my writing early, I work out early. And so before I leave for work, I have accomplished these things. The hinge factor here is \u2013 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/damiengaleone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/not-a.webp?fit=768%2C844&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EvEu-1FZ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6447"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6449,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6447\/revisions\/6449"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}