Every dog owner believes their dog is spoiled. Then you watch Grandpa put Princess Poppy to bed, and you understand you have been running a Spartan operation all along.
Princess Poppy is a boxer with a bedtime routine that has more steps than most people’s. Grandpa runs the whole thing. Covers up to the chin, a cookie, and her iPad propped up so she can watch from under the blanket, which is a sentence I did not expect to write about a dog today.
What gets me is the waiting. She does not beg and she does not pace. She takes her spot on the bed, looks up, and waits for each item on the list in order, entirely certain the service is coming. That dog has a bedtime protocol and a staff of one, and the staff looks delighted about it.
Most of us live with some version of this. Mine runs a dinner meeting at 4:15 every afternoon and will not accept a reschedule. If your dog stands in the hall at nine at night and stares at you until you follow, you already know the exact feeling this video is after. Bedtime is a scheduled service in a lot of houses.
Video by The Dodo. You can find more of their rescues and routines at youtube.com/@TheDodo.
The clip also carries a second story about a service dog who noticed something was wrong with his girl long before anyone else did. It is quieter than the bedtime bit. If your dog is instead awake and pacing at two in the morning, that is usually a different problem altogether, and worth a look before you assume it is habit.