Hey, everyone! It’s me, your attention-loving and tail-wagging JournoDog!
As you may know, it’s a beautiful time of year outside. The leaves are falling and the weather is cooling off, and there aren’t all those biting bugs outside making my life unpleasant. You may recall that I’m just over a year old, so that means as a young boy I haven’t had many W-A-L-K-S until finding my fur-ever home this past summer.
With the wonderful weather, I’m enjoying my morning and evening strolls even more. I love these W-A-L-K-S, and all the attention that comes with them and the time I get to spend with Ma and Dad.
Unfortunately, I must alert all #JournoDog readers and furry friends to a very important story that can impact your daily routines. See, there’s a new scam the humans are putting in place to mess with us pets. Despite how loving we are and no matter how much our people SAY they love spending time with us, there’s a conspiracy to delay when they are giving us attention.
It’s known as “Daylight Saving Time.” Doggy-Google says it’s been around for a really long, since the time of ancient dogs and cats. But it involves the clocks being changed by humans when most of us are sleeping, at an hour when even those middle-of-the-night cat runs around the hallways are on pause for a rest. Yes, people are changing their clocks AN HOUR LATER, in order to sleep in longer so they don’t have to feed us or take us on W-A-L-K-S at the usual time.
Be alert, friends. This is just a way to delay the time we spend together with our people. Even with reports of bad effects on people’s hearts and CAR-RIDE accidents and impacting little kiddos, humans still put these arbitrary time changes into place. And there even bad side effects for pets because of these clock changes – how outrageous!
What makes humans think, that even though they have the power to turn doorknobs and let us outside or to put food and water in our bowls, they have the ability to change when the big ball of sunshine goes up and down in the sky above!
Now, some say it all resets a long time from now with some sort of “spring forward,” but that’s forever into the future and I don’t trust that it’s actually going to happen. Or that if it does, it’s not part of the same conspiracy to mess with us dogs and cats.
Now, in my own #JournoDog research, it’s possible that this is an attempt to counter a disturbing (but not surprising) trend of pet anxiety in college students. A new research study in Washington State shows that 75% of first-year college students who’ve left pets at home experienced some level of pet separation anxiety. 1 in 4 of them reported moderate to severe symptoms, and those who had higher anxiety levels tended to treat their pets more like people and friends, even sleeping in the same room at night and generally spending more time with their furry friends.
Well, of course that makes sense. Leaving us isn’t easy and we don’t like being without our people. So maybe, as mentioned, that research is a glimpse at why humans are changing clocks to make it easier to stop paying attention to us once they leave us.
Hmmm. Food for thought.
For me, I refused to acknowledge this change and jumped up onto Ma and Dad’s bed at the same time as usual. Because I’m a smart boy, my internal doggie clock knew when it was the right time to eat, walk and poop. Ma and Dad didn’t seem to happy, as they expected to sleep in later, but too bad. I rule this household!
Here’s to hoping my fellow furry friends can navigate these clock change effectively, and the humans respect our authority in telling them what time it truly is.
Until next week, or whenever the news beckons like a barking dog you can’t help but pay attention to, #JournoDog out.
As always, remember: Love your dog. Read a newspaper. Spend time with your pets no matter what the clock says. And try to smile and find a little happiness for your heart every day.
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JournoDog Chronicles 