My new alarm clock

In addition to my normal digital alarm clock with its horrible electronified beeping loudness and glowing red numbers, I have discovered I now have another alarm to help me wake up. Our sweet dog, Lucy, has learned that when my alarm beeps and I hit the snooze and roll over, it is her duty to make sure that I get up so that she can get her early morning run. (We did finally cave and let her sleep in our bedroom, since the garage gets cold at night now.) She trots to my side of the bed with her collar jingling, pushes her fuzzy, ticklish snout next to my face and gives me the "nuzzle," followed shortly by the "wet-nose nudge". Which does awaken me slightly better than the beeping. If an appendage is sticking out, she feels it is her duty to make sure that appendage gets a good cleaning before I get out of bed, in case having a dry, and apparently dirty toe was keeping me from standing up. Sometimes, though, she has to resort to more serious methods.

In addition to the "nuzzle", the "wet-nose nudge", and the "foot-licking", I also got her ultimate, guaranteed-to-get-her-lazy-sleepy-owner-out-of-bed, full-on assault: the "jump-and-ooof". So called because she, with her forty pounds of hair and muscle, does the jumping, and I, trying to squeeze a few last minutes of sleep from the dawn, do the "oofing" as she lands on top of me.

She also threw in a "face-lick" for good measure.

She certainly makes sleeping in much, much harder.