Pavlov’s Dog

I’ve been thinking lately that Pavlov had a cat. Prior to his saliva-inducing, bell-ringing dog research, Pavlov’s cats were ringing his bell, making him get up in the middle of the night to tend to their every want and need and that’s what gave him the idea for his research in the first place (sixth grade students, please take note, this is not something worth plagiarizing for your report).

At four in the morning, when Pavlov’s cat jostled his academic regalia against the door to wake him, he got up to pee and he thought, “By jove, I’ve got it!” Or actually, something that translates to “By jove” in Russian. But anyway, my cats have perfected the art of negative stimuli on me and I no longer sleep all the way through the night.

Somewhere around 4 a.m. one of them will climb on top of my bedstand and knock my shades against the window, creating instant anxiety that she will rip a hole in it with her paw and I am up and she jumps down. At this point I realize I need to use the facilities. They follow me out of the bedroom to the bathroom and I close the door soundly on them in the living room before returning to sleep.

At 6 a.m. they start to meow outside of the bedroom door. I own a sound machine, and the meows cut through it and earplugs. If by some miracle the sound doesn’t rouse me they rattle the doorknob or twang the doorjamb until I can’t stand it any longer and get up to feed them. If I was a morning person, this would get me up for good, but I’m not so I go back to sleep for the fifteen minutes it takes them to eat.

After breakfast, they meow loudly to be let out and I dutifully rise again, open the door, tell them to be good and watch them run down the steps to the backyard to play. I toddle back to bed and reset the alarm to 7:30, have the craziest dream of my life, and rise to open the door for them to come back in at 7:30. This goes on every morning.

Yes, I have tried spraying them in the face with water, but then I’m already up so what good does it do that I’m spraying them in the face? Yes, I have thought about locking them out of the bedroom, but this is a small house and there is no corner where I cannot here them yowl. So, I’ve done what any good dog would do. I go to bed early.