When we were young and in the workforce, and long before that, even as a child, my husband was a morning person, up bright and early to start the day. Not me. Let me sleep in and I will, although I can still recall a little conspiracy when our children were young and they and their father decided to tip-toe around the morning-silent house on a Sunday so I could sleep in, and everyone would just pitch in to look after things. When I finally awoke, I felt devastated. Getting on with the morning without me?!

Well, this morning, I awoke, cracked open the eye closest to the clock-radio on my night table, inwardly groaned, as I squinted and read the ungodly hour of 7:30, and flipped myself over. And as I turned over, I was caught by two strong arms, lifting me to a sitting position, nuzzling me. That was my husband, and his beaming face informed me no sleeping in this morning. I'd forgotten. We had to do the food shopping.

Jackie and Jillie were already up, they always are, as soon as there's movement or a  sound from us. At night we can talk loudly together, move about, get up, get back in bed, and they won't stir. Nothing disturbs them. Until morning, no matter the amount of light that enters the bedroom, sunny day or overcast. I leaped out of bed to join my husband, already dressed, to prepare the puppies for their morning ritual.

This may be routine now, but it's not the daily routine that Jackie approves of, and he knows that he and his sister will be left alone in the house while we go to the supermarket. While he allows me to play with him and stroke him to calm him, he refuses anything to eat. Jillie behaves otherwise, she always does. She gets upset too but nothing can keep her from her food.

We embark early to beat the crowds, and it works out quite well. When we arrive, there are few shoppers, and for the most part the people we see in the aisles are stocking shelves, depleted from the day before. There's the occasional errant shopper, elderly and forgetful, who pushes a shopping cart in the 'wrong' direction, oblivious to the directional arrows, but there's ample room to move along the aisles. We wonder at the proliferation of aisles dedicated to South and East Asian food choices because we rarely see shoppers who fit that profile. We should broaden our food-and-cuisine horizons, I know.

When we return from our food shopping expedition, Jackie and Jillie greet us explosively, jubilant at our return, ecstatic that they won't go through life as orphaned puppies, leaping all over us. But Jackie still refuses to eat. No to his favourite cauliflower, no to the special treats we brought home for them, no to his breakfast. Not really pouting, not feeling well at all. Jillie? She devoured her breakfast, the treats, and then her half of the chopped hard-boiled egg they get when my husband has his own.

When we prepared to get out for our daily hike through the woods, they were dressed a little more carefully than usual, a sweater tucked under their warmest winter coats, along with their boots. The thermometer refused to budge upward, -11C was what it was and what it was determined to remain at. With an ice-needle-like probing wind. But it was sunny and beautifully bright, so there was that compensation.

Out in the ravine, there was no question we had to keep moving with alacrity. Before we entered the ravine a neighbour who lives next to the entrance told us that another neighbour had filmed a coyote just behind her backyard around noon a few days ago; her backyard abuts onto the forest. He captured a full half-hour of the coyote just hanging out. Further down the street one little dog that had been left out on its own months ago in the backyard yapped its head off until its human looked out to see a coyote making itself comfortable in her backyard.

It's why we keep Jackie and Jillie on leash all the time, now. And so, today, they were straining and pulling at their leashes and the result is that we moved ahead even faster than we meant to, to accommodate them. Ordinarily we'd tell them to stop pulling and just take our time, but we were fairly agreeable to picking up our pace, since it generates more energy and with the effort comes a warming effect and we needed it today. I could feel the wind penetrating my down-filled jacket and the thick sweater beneath it.

And though the inclination is to linger when in conversation with people we know that we run across on the trails, this wasn't a day that accommodated one to standing about; both parties anxious to cut conversations as short as possible and continue moving ahead. When we finally arrived back home, Jackie was bouncy and energetic, exuding expectation and I inferred that he was prepared to eat, hungry as a result of his earlier self-deprivation.

They both lapped up a tiny bowl each of canned salmon and its juices, then moved on to chopped, raw cauliflower and finally feeling better about the course of the day, each trotted off for a well-earned nap.