Routine is good...as are some habits. Both can also be bad. Depends on who is in control...you or someone else. This applies to people only...because pets like cats and dogs always like routine; but they, like people can adopt bad habits.
When our Alaska Malamute dogs were alive they both had bad habits, but thankfully nothing we could not deal with. Our two cats now are the same. But both the dogs, and now the cats, absolutely loved "routine." Like right now for example. My cat Lucy is lapping up the left-over milk in my cereal bowl. She does that every day, and her eyes light up when she sees me go to the pantry to get the cereal box out, and then she sits patiently waiting for her treat. Regular feeding time is another thing the cats love...my personal belief is that both have internal clocks that can tell exactly when it's 8 AM or 5PM...daylight savings time taken into consideration.
With the dogs, they were less concerned about the time they ate, than they were about what the food was. Picky eaters both. What was important to them time-wise was, however, their daily runs with me...some being long runs, like when we were in Germany with dog Nicki when we'd run the woods in Karlsruhe for miles and miles...and he never got tired...unlike me. Our female malamute Mystee was not as good a runner as was Nicki, but she wanted to "GO" anyway, and in her younger days runs of 2-4 miles were easy for her, especially when we lived on the North Carolina coast...she loved running in beach sand.
Anyway, we all have our routines and habits...man...woman...cat...or dog.
