The original title of this essay was One Minute in the Life of a Puppy, but the list of events grew too long. Therefore I limited the time-span to a more manageable five seconds.
PRELUDE: Every morning, my eight week old puppy, Scooter, wakes me around 5:30 to tell me that he needs to be let out.
I put on my robe and slippers, and shiver in the autumn frost for 10 minutes while he sniffs through the leaves for a place to pee. Next I take him back into the house where I start the coffee, after which I prepare his breakfast and get dressed for our long walk. So as to not destroy the house, I loop the handle of his leash around the knob of the kitchen door.
Here is what happened this morning.
05:24:10 While airborne and shaking his leash, Scooter manages to slip his tether off the knob.
05:24:11 Rushing into the garage, he flung one of my running shoes into the wood pile. It will take me two weeks to find the shoe because that is what it took the last time.
05:24:12 Bouncing back into the house, he deftly placed all four of his paws into his food dish. Normally, I would consider this a bad thing but not this morning, his paw prints allow me to track his progress through the house.
05:24:13 He bit at a throw-rug in the hall, rolling it into a ball. Now my wife has something to stumble on when she rushes from bedroom to see what is going on.
05:24:14 The entire contents of the trash bin is spilled onto the kitchen floor. To be fair, it was not Scooter who knocked it over. The actual culprit was the broom he bowled over.
05:24:15 Scooter performs a flying-power-body-splash onto our two cats who are sleeping peacefully on the living room rug. The cats go airborne. Now there are three animals in flight through the living room. Lamps tilt precariously. Photos placed beyond the reach of grand-children leap off the wall to join the scrum of fur below and the television remote, much like the running shoe in the garage, scurries to the safety of some hard to get to and impossible to guess place.
Aftermath: The cats make short work of Scooter who beats a hasty retreat to the garage. His yelping wakes our neighbor who lives a quarter mile away. The yelping also upset his sheep and another neighbor’s cattle. They call to say they will be speaking to me later today.
Aside from the mess, thankfully, the house requires only minor repair – nothing structural. I consider this a good morning. It was nothing like Scooter’s first week with us.
Almost Iowa 
That settles it. A puppy is the last thing I want.
But they are so cu-oooooo-ute
So’s the cat I’m fostering, but when she sleeps on my neck and wakes to claw that same neck, she’s a lot less cute.
The first sentence of your post, in its admirable succinctness, describes the life of a puppy owner to perfection. Loved this post!
Some posts write themselves. Others require the assistance of a whirling ball of fur.
Love your account. Great fun to read.
Sounds just like home. Even though my pup Velvet is a black lab nearly seven years old early mornings consist of equal parts drama and trauma. Velvet sleeps quietly beside my bed all night but when I climb over her to get to the bathroom, she always chooses that moment to stand up. Then, when I open the bedroom door, and my ankle is wrapped in a wet furry embrace from a cat who found her way in from outside. I squawk. Velvet comes to the rescue, all 90 lbs of her, taking the legs out from under me as I plunk on the floor. Cats scatter And so my day begins.
Yikers.
Hm. Perhaps time to revisit the insurance policy. Maybe a rider on lost and/or misplaced household items.
Most insurance companies exclude damage done by “An Act of God” and “A Puppy”