I think Theo is Catholic
I say this because he is a dog that likes rituals. If things don't happen when he expects them to happen he will try his best to bark until they finally occur. We do occasionally ignore him until he stops barking, but for the most part his plan of action works. In the morning, he usually needs to go outside. He will wait though, until I get out of bed and if I'm trying to sleep in he'll do his best to get me up to open the door for him. Never mind that Rob has often already been up, it's got to be me. And these days, maybe because his vision is getting poor, I need to walk out on the deck (usually still in my nightgown) before he'll actually venture forth into the yard. That's all well and good now that it's 80 degrees at 6 in the morning and I don't mind breathing in the morning air while listening to the birds sing, but come winter that ain't gonna happen even if there's a decree from the Pope. And fresh water is usually required before I head off to work and he makes sure I don't forget. If I'm not going to work that day he'll remind me at the appropriate time anyway.

Now a dog can't lounge around in air conditioned comfort all day drinking water without the need to visit the backyard later in the day, but does he ask Rob to let him out when Rob gets home? Oh no, he has to wait for me and so we have another ritual. As soon as I get home, I have to let him out... and walk out on the back deck because it's not just in the mornings that I have to provide moral support these days. And then there's dinner time. Theo will always ask for dinner between 7 and 8 pm. The dog has a better sense of time than I ever had. Rob and I alternate feeding the dogs, not any strict schedule of alternation, just sometimes it's me and sometimes it's Rob and Theo has learned to bark at us both in the hopes of making the food magically appear. Which of course, it always does and I'm sure he thinks - hey, it works! After dinner he wants to go out (another trip out on the deck for me) and fresh water again after that. And Rob has posted before about his barking for us to come to bed if we've been staying up past the usual time.

And now Theo has added a new ritual - a wipe down mid-way between dinner and bedtime with the doggie bath wipes I bought a while back. You see, Theo hates baths. It's a very traumatic event for him and us both involving a muzzle and leash and usually a big pile of steaming dog shit - it literally scares the shit out of him. In an effort to minimize the number of times a year he (and us) need to endure this scenario, I bought some doggie bath cloths and started wiping him down once and a while in the evenings. He hated it at first, but then kind of got into the groove of it all. And then tonight... when the bath cloth time came and went with out occurring, he started barking. But I thought, well, he's been fed, he's been outside, he's had fresh water, does he need to go out again? It didn't occur to me that he wanted his wipe down until I noticed he was standing in the usual spot, looking pointedly at the box of wipes. And there we have it, the birth of a new ritual.

You may be asking why we put up with this sort of behavior and let this dog apparently run our life, but it's really not like that. Like I said earlier, we occasionally ignore the barking and he's just reminding us of his basic needs - food, water and the elimination of before mentioned items. For the most part, it's just us humoring him since he's a crotchety old man that likes things done on a schedule. And well, if he wants to add a daily dry bath to the routine, why not?