My annoying bathroom buddy.

Dogs are cute when they want to be petted when you're indisposed. Possibly a little annoying at times, but cute never-the-less. I can't say that about my darling Don Juan. At 5:30 in the morning when my eyes barely have openings, he's not so cute. He's just downright annoying.

I guess I should backtrack and explain the situation. If you'll use your imagination here, you'll have to see the layout of my house. First there is the bathroom. When you leave that door you enter a little hallway and directly across from the bathroom door is the door to the bedroom where the puppies reside. In that room is a nice window that faces the front of my house, the walkway and the road. Some day I'll get the curtains up on the window, but right now the window in that room stands naked. With both doors open and the lights on in the house, from the outside, you can see all the way through the bedroom into the bathroom. So as you can guess, it behooves you to keep the doors shut tight when you are in the bathroom. You wouldn't want the neighbors to view the goings on.

I don't know if dogs can be claustrophobic. Don Juan has never liked to be crated, contained, or otherwise shut in. He can climb out of any fence. Open any crate and the latest and greatest, he has figured out how to open all the doors in the house, including the bathroom door. It never fails, on the toilet, the door flys open and there's Don Juan demanding his pets. But, I'm smarter than the normal dog - right? I know he's going to do that, so I shut the door to the bedroom and all is good. Ah ha.

But not this morning. He opened the bedroom door first, ate the puppy food, and then opened the bathroom door to expose me to the world in all my glory. Thanks Don Juan.

I looked up to see the door to the bedroom standing wide open. I'm sitting wide-eyed, exposed to the world, mad at a dog who thinks he's the most clever dog in the world. He then looks up at me, takes his furry paw and flips the big metal water bowl into the air, spilling what's left of the water. It crashes to the ground not once, or twice, but three times. He just had to let me know he was out of water with that metal bowl on tile sound at 5:30 am when the rest of the house is still asleep. The whole time I'm telling him in my stern voice, "Don't do that again.", "Don Juan, No." "No, Donny, No." really thinking, "Please don't wake up small child!"

He just smiled. What could I do from my perch on the john, the whole neighborhood watching? (OK, maybe not, I think everyone else was probably still in bed at that time. But if my neighbors are reading this please don't tell me that you were peeping through my window at the exact time this all took place. I don't think I really want to know.)

My Don Juan. My new training challenge is to teach him to close the doors properly when he enters or exits a room. Do you think at almost 11 years old he'll be up for that challenge?