My first thought after the alarm goes off in the morning is usually a wordless desire to go back to sleep, often followed by a search for an excuse to do so, just for 15 minutes.

I am not a morning person.

If you’re one of those people who pops awake at dawn every morning without an alarm and sets off to begin accomplishing many things, with just a cup of coffee in your hand and a smile on your face, I salute you. But leave me alone while you do it.

If the sun isn’t up, I typically don’t see why I should be. I’m sure the sun knows what it’s doing.

These days, I have unexpectedly and unintentionally began using a snooze prevention device that keeps me from going back to sleep in the mornings. Her name is Ava.

That half of my foster dog duo is, it turns out, a morning canine in the extreme.

The instant the alarm goes off, she has her nose — and her tongue, if I’m not careful — in my face, begging for attention, wiggling all over like a 60-pound puppy and trying to crawl all over me before I’m fully awake.

Meanwhile, her canine compatriot Braulio and I wonder if that much enthusiasm should be legal first thing in the morning. At least, that’s what I wonder.

Braulio once got up, moved away from Ava’s whirlwind of enthusiasm and laid back down in a less excitement-saturated spot.

“Ha! At least one of them gets my not-a-morning-person philosophy,” I thought.

More recently, though, Braulio has been considering the action silently and then rolling around on his back with obvious delight and an apparent decision to be enthusiastic in the morning, too. Traitor.

But they’re correct that I need to get up.

So, I pet them for a couple of minutes and then shuffle out of the bedroom, with the dogs excitedly bouncing off my legs and the walls like popping popcorn, to let them outside before breakfast.

No use trying to go back to sleep in the midst of the canine commotion. Yes, the furry snooze prevention device is quite effective.

I may not be a ball of fire in the morning, but I’m alert and focused at 8 or 10 p.m. It’s a great time to get stuff done.

The morning people having gone to bed just lessens interruptions.

Any work they need me to do will be done and waiting for them when they get up at dawn.

If the morning people don’t call me at 6 a.m. or expect me to be anywhere at 7 in the morning, I won’t call them at 10 p.m. or expect them to be anywhere at 9 o’clock at night. Then we can all be happy.