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I’ve been waking up every morning to these sweet little faces.

Although struggling to get out of bed in the morning is one of the effects of narcolepsy I experience on a near-daily basis, I find myself motivated by these two. I’m especially motivated because they’ve been taught to ring a jingle bell hanging on the back door when they want to go out. The last thing I want is Mookie ringing the bell with such vigor that he wakes up Heath.

Mookie is quite expressive with his bell ringing compared to Willow. There’s his “fake news” ring that Heath identified a few days ago where Mookie only wants to get outside so he can turn around on the step and then come right back inside. Then there’s his ring which we describe as “aggressive” where it’s like he’s using the bell as a punching bag. Mookie means business with that ring!

His aggressive ring is usually what I hear first thing in the morning. Even when we all go down the stairs together and I have never once let him down by not opening the door, Mookie still runs over there and jumps on it like a dog on a mission.

So, I get out of bed no matter how tired I am. That’s Puppy Power, my friends.

Puppy Power is also responsible for a trip Heath and I took to Niwot, CO, this past week. In 2018, a tweet appeared in my feed that showed an adorable doodle puppy announcing him as someone’s new love and that she was still trying to decide on his name.

So I did what any good dog-loving person would do. I responded with a suggestion.

That’s when Laura and I started to get to know one another. In addition to having a love of dogs, Laura also writes children’s books and she used to live in Chicago. We’ve followed each other on Twitter ever since then and she also follows this blog.

Laura is a rare breed of author in that the first children’s book she ever wrote, Aliana Reaches for the Moon, was acquired by Eifring Publishing and published in 2019. She now has another book coming out in winter 2024 entitled An Accidental Hero: A Mostly True Wombat Story.

When Laura commented on my last blog post about how close Fort Collins is to where she lived, I suggested we meet in person. Laura, in turn, suggested The Wandering Jellyfish children’s bookstore in Niwot, CO.

We met on Tuesday and had a wonderful time, hugging in person and discussing the ups and downs of children’s publishing.

Laura is lovely and delightful and my first friend in Colorado. All because of Puppy Power. Is there anything that our love for dogs can’t do?

For the purposes of this blog post, puppy is not a chronological term, but a state of mind.