Waking up with Sami is genuinely the best part of my day. It's also, somehow, the most negotiated.

He doesn't wake up on his own. We wake him up. He sleeps until late, usually past 10am if we let him, so what actually happens is that my husband, Bobby, and I get up early, do an hour or so of work in another room, and then come back upstairs to gently rouse him. He blinks at us, stretches, gets a little floppy, and only then does he agree that yes, the day can begin. And of course he's thrilled to see us. As if we've been gone for weeks instead of asleep down the hall.

We spend the first few minutes in bed cuddling and playing. This is non-negotiable. If I skip it and try to get him moving, he gives me a look that I can only describe as deeply offended.

Then comes the back massage. I'm not making this up. Sami insists on a morning back rub, and if you've never lived with a Westie you might think this is overselling it. It's not. He rolls onto his side, pushes his back into my hand, and stays there for as long as I'll keep going. Bobby does the same when it's his turn. It's the one part of the routine where Sami is fully cooperative, fully present, and completely satisfied. The rest of the morning, honestly, gets harder from here.

The breakfast negotiation

Now we have to get him down the stairs.

You'd think a dog who has been waiting on his breakfast would be motivated. Sami is not. He's lazy, he's sleepy, and even food doesn't excite him in the morning. I have to coax him step by step, calling his name, making sure he doesn't stop halfway and decide that actually, he'd like to go back to bed. If I had a treat in my pocket he'd come tearing down. But I don't bribe him with treats just to walk down his own stairs. We'd never get out of that cycle.

Breakfast is a mix of kibble and home-cooked food. The kibble is medical - it helps with his skin allergies - and the home-cooked part is because Sami doesn't actually like the kibble, and he gets constipated if he doesn't eat enough fiber. Picky-eater with allergies and a sensitive digestive system: this is what Westie life is, and it's mostly fine, you just learn the workarounds.

Today's bowl was pumpkin, oatmeal, spinach, and tuna. If I mix it well enough, he'll eat the whole thing. If I don't, he'll eat the tuna, eat around everything else, and look at me like I've insulted him. As you can see, it's not easy having a picky dog. Anyone who follows Sami on Instagram has seen me explain this approximately a hundred times.

The walk he sometimes hates

After breakfast, we go outside. Sometimes we flip the order and walk first, eat after - depends on the morning, depends on the weather. What's consistent is that Sami hates putting his harness on. Hates it. The second I reach for it, he tries to slip away, and I have to be fast enough to catch him before he disappears under the couch. Once it's on, he's fine. He just doesn't want to admit that it's on him.

The walk itself follows a pattern. He sniffs the same bushes, marks the same spots, says hello to the same neighbors. We learned during potty training that Westies are deeply attached to routine, and the morning walk is where it shows most. Some mornings he's into it, some mornings he's a brick. Westies are like that.

The working-from-home stage

We come home and do a quick workout. Sami either sits inside watching us or, if the yard is in the shade, he sits outside. If it's hot out - and Portugal in summer is hot - he goes straight to the coolest tile floor he can find. He has opinions about temperature.

By 11am it's time for actual work. Both my husband and I work from home, so Sami sits with us. Usually he picks my office. He spends the last hour of the morning getting ready to nap, which means he tours his favorite spots and weighs his options. There's the couch by the window, where he can keep an eye out for danger (cats, the postman, a leaf moving the wrong way). There's the bean bag chair we bought him after he refused to leave one we found in an Airbnb during a trip down to Andalucía. Cheaper than a fancy dog bed, and he loves it more than any of the twenty we already had.

And then there's his actual favorite: the closet. He stands at the closet door, asks me to open it, walks in, and sleeps on the floor. Twenty dog beds in this house. He picks the closet. I've stopped trying to figure it out.

What the routine taught us

I used to think a morning routine was about productivity. Living with Sami, I've changed my mind. The routine is the negotiation. The cuddles before the back rub, the back rub before the breakfast, the breakfast before the harness, the harness before the walk. Skip a step and the whole day starts wrong. He knows. We know. The order matters.

If you live with a Westie, you already understand. If you don't yet, this is what you're signing up for. A small white dog who runs your mornings, sleeps in your closet, and demands cuddles before he'll consider eating spinach. It's the best part of my day.