Dogdammit, you get up early!

It's O-Dark-Thirty in the morning and Tierce is whining to get up. Here are the steps, in order:

1. Check the time in exhausted disbelief.
2. Open the crate door.
3. Shamble out of bed, sleepily avoiding the puppy now frisking and gnawing at my ankles.
4. Locate housecoat, Crocs and put on same, still avoiding frisking puppy.
5. Go downstairs to let puppy out.
6. Go back upstairs to the third-from-last step where puppy is stuck, having used up all his courage in getting down the top two steps.
7. Put puppy on ground in front of door.
8. Re-orient puppy, who has decided that a grease stain on the kitchen tile is more fascinating than the pee threatening to dribble from his nether regions at any given second.
9. Watch puppy charge out of door, trip over the only stick in the yard, and come up to stand stiff-legged for six seconds. This is the Holy Grail of dog ownership. The dog has peed outside.
10. Watch eagle-eyed as puppy tears around yard to see where he squats to poop so you can pick it up before he smears it across the yard and himself. He invariably picks the spot around the house or behind the bush, causing you to trudge across the damp lawn to make sure he's done the job.
11. Play puppy keep-away as you attempt to catch the little darling who decides he doesn't want his breakfast as much as this lovely game of chase.
12. Catch puppy.
13. Bring puppy inside and hand feed him his breakfast in my arms. This reinforces the dominant position I'm supposed to have with this dog.
14. Put the rest of his breakfast in his dish and refill his water dish.
15. Collapse on the couch beside the ex-pen and fall asleep, dreaming blissfully of the day that Tierce can hold it for eight hours or learn to flush the toilet.