A Creature of Habit

It has been fun getting to know Brinkley's personality over the last four months.  He is playful, goofy, loving, and wild!  And he is also quite the creature of habit.

In the last week or so, I have noticed that he has a routine for going outside.  He will usually come to me and pace and whine when he needs to go out.  As soon as I say, "Let's go outside!" he runs to find a toy.  Then he carries to toy to the door, makes a big show of throwing it down, usually across the room, and he sits.  He waits for me to put his leash on, and then we go out.  As soon as he gets back inside, he finds the toy again, picks it up, and holds it in his mouth while he sits and I remove his leash.  Then, as soon as I release him from his sit, he begins playing with the toy.  It doesn't matter if he was asleep, already playing, or just sitting still, he HAS to find a toy as soon as I say the word outside!  It is a very cute ritual to watch.

He has another habit also.  He sleeps on the floor on his bed at night, but once my alarm starts going off in the morning he thinks he needs to be on my bed.  He hears the alarm, jumps up on my bed, and snuggles close.  As soon as the alarm goes off again, he jumps down, waits for me to push snooze and roll back over, and then he jumps back up on the bed and snuggles close.  He repeats this process as many times as I push the snooze button!

I may be rubbing off on him though.  He picked up on a routine of mine weeks ago!  I always take him in the bathroom with me when I take a shower, because I don't trust him yet to be alone in the house yet.  So now, if I go into my room and get clothes and then go to the linen closet for towels, he runs to the bathroom because he knows it's shower time!