Must Work for Food

Hey! Ash and Brit here. We are homeschooled and so that means that sometimes Mom gets creative and assigns us homework that is a little, shall we say, off the wall. Since we are in high school now, Mom and Dad think we need to "improve" our writing skills, so for our Communicating Effectively class Mom assigned us to write a creative 200 word essay on our morning dog chores.

Seriously, Mom?! Morning dog chores?! BORING! Anyway, the catch was that she was going to take the creative ideas from both of our essays and make them into a blog post. So here is a mish-mosh of both of our assignments combined and smashed into one creative post. We hope you enjoy it!

Good morning! The school year is in full swing, and even though it's still 90 degrees, our lazy days of summer have been replaced with poop-scooping hard work! Mom developed a very detailed chore chart for us, equipped with specific times that each chore needs to be completed by. Our first class starts at "Zero-Seven-Thirty," as Mom says, and we better have our butts in our chairs five minutes prior, or else! So, well before the rooster crows, and long before breakfast is served, Mom marches around the house like a drill sergeant yelling, "TIME TO GET UP!" And before we can get one foot out of the bed she's already barking at us to start our chores. So, we all stumble around the house looking like zombies trying to muster enough strength to force our eyes open. Meanwhile, the big dogs are running around like pin-balls because they are so freaking excited the humans are up, and it is at that time every morning that we wonder why we have dogs and a mother.

Our first dog chore is to put the big dogs out to go potty. Raven, the angel, goes out and pees, and then wants to hang out in the yard all day. She loves to be outside so we fill up a big water bucket for her and put out a food dish and she's good till dinner time. Tala, the devil, does not pee, but jumps the fence and runs to the back yard to go visit her puppies. I suppose it's an honorable thing, but then we are left to run to the back of the house, and at the top of our lungs, yell for her to come back in. At this time we have woken the rooster AND the neighbor. Tala does come when she is called but she has still not peed so we have to put her back in the front yard only to have her jump the fence again. That's why we call her the devil. It's far too early for that nonsense!

While we are screaming and yelling at Tala, and chasing her around the yard, Mom and Michael bring the puppies from the back kennel to the front pen. Aksala, Jagger, and Andonia are fed but Matsi is separated from the pack because, just like us kids, Mom makes Matsi work for her breakfast.

After all our house and farm chores are done, and while we are all starving, we cut up some hotdogs and one of us will lay a track for Matsi. Matsti's breakfast is at the end of the track with the kid who laid the track. Mom says that a really smart dog trainer suggested we feed Matsi this way so that it will build up her hunt drive. I often wonder what the purpose is behind us having to work for our food. I suppose it's that old fashioned, you don't work, you don't eat mentality; which I am okay with, but I really don't think it's fair or ethical that the animals get to eat before the kids.