Every morning when it’s about time to do my cardio video in the living room, it’s the same thing.

My cat Lucky waits for me in the center of the room.

I take this as my cue to put my sneakers on.

I load up my water bottle, move the ottoman out of the way, and prepare two couch blankets in a very specific fashion.

I take the first one and fold it length-wise, then lay it across the couch, smoothing out any wrinkles. Then I take the second blanket and fold that too. I drape it over the couch in a way that creates a tent.

I now have an A-frame house for Lucky, who knows now that he can move to the end table and sit there.

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I begin the video.

For the first couple of minutes, Lucky does nothing but observe me, making sure I have good form and that I’m getting into a zone.

After that, he begins pawing at the edge of the top blanket to indicate that he’s now ready to enter his tented house.

There is plenty of room for him to just crawl through the side opening I have carefully created for him, but no. He paws at the blanket because he wants me to stop doing my cardio, go over and pick up the top blanket, pull it back, then wait for him to decide the time is right to enter.

This may take five seconds or it may take a full minute. Meanwhile, I’m losing precious cardio time. I coax him by saying “Come on, Lucky. Who’s a good boy? Lucky’s a good boy! Go on, go in!”

I encourage him as long as it takes, then he slowly makes his way through the tunnel to settle his warm little body into a nice blob under the center of the blanket. I return the top blanket to its position so as to recreate the tent, taut and well-constructed.

Here, he either makes a satisfying little noise or he says nothing.

Either way, I go back to doing the cardio. If this was a day where he said nothing going in, I go back over to the couch and poke him through the blanket until he makes the noise. I don’t know why I do this. I guess for the same reason Lucky has his routine. I have mine.

Halfway through my workout, I ask him how he’s doing – “Lucky! Is he a good boy? Yes! He’s a good boy!”

When I’m done with the video, I go back over and ask him if I did a good job today. He looks at me like he wants to answer. I like to think what he wants to say is “You did a great job, Mommy! And thank you for making my blanket tent a good one today. You’re the best Mommy! Yes, you are!”

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I love this routine of ours. I like to make Lucky comfortable each morning because we don’t know how much longer we’ll have him. He’s getting up there in age. I love that he has to have a house tent made for him “just so.” I will do it for him forever and always.

So what do you do for your pets just to make them comfortable?

Stumble it!