Every morning starts the same way. She waits until I stir, or my alarm goes off, and then Jaycee climbs over and starts licking my face, wanting the day to start the second mine does. Then she hops down and waits, first by the bathroom door, then by the coffee maker, basically supervising the two things that have to happen before anything else can.

I push the button. Sometimes it's already brewed. We go to the door. She doesn't need a leash, never has, she just goes out, does her business, and comes right back in and heads straight to her spot, because she knows what's coming next. Chicken jerky. It might genuinely be the best part of her day, and I don't think that's an exaggeration.

While the coffee's brewing she jumps up in my lap, sprawls out across my belly, gives me kisses for a minute, then settles in against my chest and we just sit there for a while. I don't rush this part, haven't since I left my abusive relationship. I think about how short her life actually is almost every single day, so I make myself sit still through it instead of getting up too soon. Here she is. She was good all night. She's just happy I'm awake.

Evenings are where I actually get tested. She's a lot of dog for her size, high energy, and most days that means loading up on the golf cart and heading out to the back road in our neighborhood, throwing her squeaky ball or golf ball while she takes off after it like her life depends on it. We do that for about fifteen minutes until she's finally worn out. Some days I really don't want to go, I've had a long day and I'd rather just sit down, but I load up the cart anyway because she's been waiting on me since I left this morning and if I skip it she's got all that leftover energy with nowhere to put it.

Then around eight, right when I'm ready to settle in for the night, she almost always gets a wild hair and pulls out every squeaky toy she owns, one at a time, glancing over at me the whole time so I know she's not asking me to watch. She wants me up, throwing it, chasing her down to take it back, and throwing it again, over and over. Some nights I really don't feel like getting back up off the couch for that. I do it anyway, mostly because I know this stage of her life, the toy-dumping, wild-hair, still-a-puppy-at-heart stage, isn't going to last forever.

It's the same bathroom trip. Same treat. Same fifteen minutes on the same stretch of road with the ball, over and over, and I used to think that was just what having a dog looked like. Now I think about the fact that she turns seven on November 1st, and dogs don't get very many years, and somewhere along the way all these repeated little things stopped feeling like routine and started feeling like the actual job. Not a big job. Just the job of making sure her days are good ones, for as long as I get to give her that.

We're already talking about her birthday. Last year we did Hilton Head, and it's still one of my favorite trips I've ever taken with her. This year I think it's the North Carolina mountains, somewhere neither of us has been. One more year, one more trip, one more reason all this routine is worth it.

Jane and Jaycee, of course