Midnight Noodles Story

Well, I have to start off sharing that Jason and I have the two cutest dogs in the whole wide world! We just love them to pieces. In the middle of the night Noodles just made me crack up; so here is the story:

It all started when we were getting ready to put the dogs to bed last night. I looked over and realized that their bowls were empty and they hadn’t eaten since this morning. Now typically we keep their bowls filled and they just munch throughout the day when they are hungry. I sure didn’t want our babies going to bed with any hunger pains, so I told Jason we had to wait so they could have a chance to fill their tummies. So we quickly filled their bowls and settled on the couch as the pups chowed down. As usual, Pickles is the first to finish and comes over to the couch to visit with us. As always, she looks at us with such love and I bend down to give her a hug and a great big kiss. As I do and just as typical, our princess Pickles in all her lady-like fashion lets out a huge burp right in my face, as if to say ‘thank you mom for such a great meal…’ Gross! But I do say that is better than all the sneezes Noodles blew on me today; I guess he has allergies too.

So the four of us (counting Ares the cat) are in the living room as Noodles is poking along with his evening meal. Normal dogs scarf down food, no matter what it is, but not our Noodles! About 40% of the time he decides he does not like to eat out of the bowl we give him or eat in the kitchen for that matter. So he grabs a mouthful of morsels and marches to our carpet in the living room and drops the mouthful right on our white carpet. Now he can proceed by eating a few morsels at a time. Once this is gone, he quickly goes into the kitchen, grabs another mouthful and then he’s off to another round displaying his stupidity. Now you must know that our dogs are treated to ‘special meals’ throughout the week consisting of our dinner leftovers. They just get so excited as we fill their bowls with scraps of meat, fat trimmings, a variety of noodles or potatoes and even some veggies. I am so proud of our Pickles… she eats all the veggies we give her. She takes a bite, pauses as if to try to figure out what on earth we gave her, and then as if to say, ‘hum… this is interesting…’ scarfs down everything. Noodles is the picky eater, and by no means will touch veggies. Meet and flavorful noodles (go figure!) are his favorites. I say this because it reminds me of the first time we gave our dogs tasty left over noodles with a wide variety of spices and COLORS… Noodles grabbed a mouthful and yup… dropped it on the white carpet, spread it around as if he was trying to spell out 'thank you'… So now, we do not give any COLORFUL meals to our dogs inside. If they get a colorful treat, then outside they go…!

So anyways, Noodles proceeds to do his eating routine which drives me batty. 15 minutes later he is done too! So now Jason and I look at each other knowing what the evening will bring. “You’re getting up with them in the middle of the night,’ Jason tells me! Every evening we have to let our dogs out for a potty break right before they go to bed in order for them to sleep through the night. If we let them go outside and then play inside for 15 min or so, they’ll be whining in a few hours needing to go out. It doesn’t make any sense, but we have learned our babies. But we had no choice tonight, we knew that since they ate so late, they would be waking up for a potty break sometime soon. So off to bed they went as did we.

About 12:30 this morning I hear in my dreams what sounds like pipes rattling or wind in the distance. As time progresses, I realize that it’s Noodles whining and once confirmed in my drowsy state, I get up to let him out. Now it’s clear that it’s the middle of the night; pitch black and a grumbling mom should tell the dogs that it’s not morning time yet. Every morning I great them with the same, ‘Good morning Sweet Stinky Butts’… I know it’s weird, but they love it. Then we sit on the floor as they stretch and tell me all about their dreams! But it’s the middle of the night and no ‘good morning songs’ are being sung by this mama. I open his cage and he comes out stretching, tail wagging and ready to tell me his dreams. I push him towards the kitchen telling him it’s not time to play and he quickly runs outside. So I go to the window and make sure he’s not playing around or lounging on our patio furniture… I see him doing his business, mind you that it’s not in one place, but they have to go in 4 different places in one ‘business transaction’… So then it happens; the cutest thing! Noodles finishes his business and then begins to run around all frisky, tail wagging and leaping in the air. He has such a skip to his steps as he heads to his water bucket to wet his whistle. Then he skips to the back door; tail still wagging! Then he sees me… he pauses and looks at me not sure if he should act so happy in case I’m grumpy he’s up and not in bed… So I open the door and give him a hug and tell him he’s such a good boy. That sweet dog starts to head to his bed, tail wagging and the same great skip to his step the whole way! I close the gate to his kennel and say good night and find myself having a ‘skip to my step’ as I head back to bed too.

Thank you sweet pups for brining such joy to our lives… even if it’s in the middle of the night!