I was also looking at something on my phone. Isn't that what we do in the 21^st Century, and we refer to it as multi-tasking.

Well it is the type of habit that disgusts my eight-year-old fur baby. Well at least I think he is eight - we adopted him from an animal shelter seven years ago with very little information about his past. The vet, who checked him over, suggested he was about one year old at the time. You do the math.

Anyway back to the present. Here I was 'multi-tasking' with phone and television program when my dog started nudging me under my hand - clearly trying to separate me from the electronic device.

He then jumped off the lounge, sat beside it where I was sitting, groaned at me and walked to the door. It was quite obvious he wanted to go outside - or so I thought.

I opened that door, but he didn't go out. Instead he tilted his nose upwards (and I'm sure I saw him rolling his eyes). Then he looked towards the bedroom door.

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He was indicating it was time for bed and I should have paid attention at that point, but instead I returned to the lounge - to continue my multi-tasking.

My beautiful pooch jumped on the lounge also, head on my lap, face towards mine...and he just stared. No blinking, just a staring.

Now that can be really unnerving. You know you are being a disappoint to a little, much-loved character and it doesn't sit well.

So I played into his paws. "Nigh, Nighs" I said and began to lift from my lounge room pew. For the record "nigh, nighs" is one of the trigger words for this funny little four-legged fellow. It sends him to his happy place. Neither my husband or I can remember how it began, but it has clicked with Angus - that's the name of our pooch.

So I rise from the lounge and he leaps from the space next to me and begins spinning in circles as he runs towards his favourite sleeping spot in the bedroom. I jump into bed and so does he...but he doesn't settle.

That's because his human dad, my husband, didn't also head to the bedroom. He really was watching something on television.

Master Angus, lies on his bed, staring out the bedroom door. No blinking, just staring. All I could think of was "phew I'm glad he is not staring at me anymore."

But then he lets out a little sigh - a sigh of disappointment, then another. That was for my benefit.

So I get out of bed, go to the lounge room and inform my husband that none of us is going to get any peace until we have all gone to bed.

Ten minutes later, it's lights out all round as everyone takes up their required position in bed. We don't hear a peep out of Angus the Almighty until daylight breaks.

The wake up routine is a whole set of new expectations shaped by our four legged companion. That involves dressing appropriately for a walk (he knows if you are wearing the wrong clothes), gathering up the lead. And then you say the word walk. You never say it until you mean to do it, for fear he will work himself in to a frenzy in anticipation.

Just for the record, he takes me for a walk. He is the tour guide and every day is different.

Clearly he is my master.