How does she know?

Our dog Bella wakes up just after 5am EVERY morning and barks to be let outside. How does she know it's 5am? Even with the time change...she's constant. Shaun worked overnight last night and I knew when I laid my head on the pillow just after 11pm that in 6hrs I would be up letting the dog out. Sure enough (what seemed like 10 minutes later) I hear her. I jump out of bed and run downstairs to let her out.

As I pass the cable box I notice the time, it's 5:13am. I let her out of her kennel and she runs to the back door. I let her out and she runs out as if she's about to burst...turns around and sits on the porch staring back at me. We stare at each other for a minute. I turn around and walk off hoping that she will go, do her business and come right back. When I go back and look she's smelling under the clothesline picking a spot. She goes and I open the door to let her in. She glanced back and then took off full speed into the darkness. The backyard is fenced in so she couldn't go far, but far enough that I couldn't see her. I took a seat on the sofa figuring she would be back in a minute..it was FREEZING cold. I go back and call for her...still no sign of that stinky puff ball. My patience was wearing out now so I grab the box of dog bones and shake them while calling her name. Still not a peep. I swear she was sitting down by the back of the fence laughing at me standing in the cold waiting for her. I KNEW she had a plan.

I go back to bed knowing that the second I get settled in she will bark to be let in. Of course now Garrett is up and moving around like crazy in my belly. I hate it when he does that and I'm trying to sleep. It makes me so sick to my stomache. Just as he starts to quiet down I hear her. I get up again, run downstairs past the cable box...which now read 5:36am and opened the back door. Of course she's right there waiting to be let in. I open the door she runs in and I run as fast as I can to get the gate shut to the living room and head back to bed.

That's when I hear a thud. I turn around go back into the kitchen to see her digging though the trashcan as if she had found a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. I get her away from the chicken bone she's protecting and get everything back into the trashcan, put the trashcan on the top stair leading to the basement. I figured if the cats knocked it over...Shaun can pick it up. After all it is him who says we can not find the dog a new home. By this time she's in her kennel and settled in. I leave the kennel door open so she can get out and shut the kitchen gate to keep her stinky dog smell off the sofa.

It's 5:45 and I'm heading back to bed. Of course Garrett is awake again and now I have horrible acid reflux so sleeping is next to impossible. I hear Logan cough a few times, Billy hit the wall and they're on their way downstairs. I lay in bed listening to them fight over which transformer is the coolest as the dog chases our two cats all over the house. It sounded like a presidential debate and a elephant stampede at the same time. Thankfully Ben was oblivious and still sleeping so that meant I could try to get some sleep too. 5 minutes of 7 Ben is awake and wants out of his crib so we head downstairs to start the morning.

How in the world does the dog know when it's 5am and why does she get up at the crack of dawn just to pee? I can barely drag myself out of bed at 6:55am with a full bladder, two kids yelling, one crying and a stampede going on.