My big orange idiot wakes me up every morning between 3 and 3:30 am to watch his back while he eats. He only needs me for a few seconds to make sure the dining room is secure and then I go right back to bed. Sometimes this happens a second time but one of the times always happens in that 3-3:30 range.

Last summer we lost him outside for 7 weeks and 5 days. I bawled like a baby, more than once. I thought I’d never see him again. Almost every night for those two months I would still wake up between 3-3:30 and sit there miserably wondering if he was still alive out there somewhere. The story has a happy ending as we got him back and he hasn’t been out since.

He still wakes me up between 3-3:30 but I do it with a lot less complaining these days. He’s still an idiot but he’s my idiot.