29th of January. Thursday.
5 pm
We were out of unfrozen roast beef, because I failed my kitchen management duties. So it was lucky that we had an almost-full tin of Cesar. Cesar in place of the roast beef, and a little extra chicken, and we were good. Bubba, who couldn’t be bribed with Cesar promptly removed most of it from the bowl, as well as all of the cheese. Buddy swooped in when Bubba took a break, finished off the Cesar and the rest of the chicken, so all that was left was hot dog.
4:50 pm
I tried to give Bubba the rest of his meds. I put the cup with his meds + Cesar mix in a ziplock and kept it in the fridge overnight. I pulled out the cup, plus the rest of the Cesar (95% unused), and started by hand feeding Cesar to Buddy in order to get Bubba’s interest. Or, at least that was the plan. Bubba didn’t want to stick to the script.
The food was on the counter by the sink. Both guys were in the kitchen. I put a little ball of the wet food into my palm, and turned around – and Bubba left. The whole point of feeding some to Buddy was so Bubba would be jealous. So I walked out of the kitchen and waited for Bubba to look. Buddy stayed right by my side the whole way – he knew there was a delicious treat in my hand. Bubba noticed, and watched, and I crouched down to feed Buddy. Bubba had come over to investigate and sniff at what Buddy was eating. I got up and walked into the kitchen. The guys followed. I put another ball of the food for Buddy into my hand and turned around to feed it to him.
Bubba was gone again.
This time he had wandered just past the dining area, standing between the bedroom and the studio. I waited for him to turn around, while Buddy stood at my ankle staring at my hand with the food. Bubba started coming towards us, and I crouched to give Buddy the food. Bubba was more interesting, now. He’d seen Buddy happily being fed twice. I returned to the kitchen and the guys followed. This time the Cesar would be Bubba’s, an appetizer before the medication. I turned around, and he had left AGAIN.
I walked out to find him, and he was in the living room playing with the reindeer! I’d never seen him ever play with the toys before. He only chomped on it a couple of times, yipped at it and then did his Alpha Posture to show it who was boss, then lost interest. But I decided to give up. I let Buddy have the ball of food in my hand, then went to prep dinner.
4 pm
We went out for our pre-dinner walk. The guys didn’t get much deep napping today, so they should be asleep early again, which means they’ll be up and ready to go very early again. I’m not getting control of this situation. I feel like they’ve figured me out, and I’m the one being time-managed.
Both guys pooped, and we walked for 50 minutes.
10:30 am
I think that if we had a hail storm and force 5 winds, the guys would still want to walk if I had coffee. The second I walked in both guys wanted to go out. I had taken one sip, and we wouldn’t be back for an hour and a half.
Buddy was in a hurry. He right in the planter under the stairs on the outside. We weren’t getting across the street or over to the mailboxes to do the morning business. We continued on across to the park, where Bubba went for the second time today. It was after 11 by the time we made it to the middle of the park, and we got a text from Yvette wanting to walk, so we invited her to join us. She caught up with us about 15 minutes later. We came back into the neighborhood at the north entrance. Over by the pool, we ran into Kathy and Baffo, and while the dogs and people visited, Jolene came out with Charlie and Elroy – both running to us off-leash. I really would love to let the guys off leash to run, but it’s bad enough at the dog park, no way I let them loose in the parking lot.
It was almost noon by the time escorted Yvette to her home, then returned to ours. The coffee was trash.
8:35 am
I tore my knee.
It’s not a new injury – it’s a recurring injury. I already own a brace, because this happens, mostly when I get stupid because I forget I’m not 22. This is my body’s way of telling me that playing chase first thing in the morning without warming up my joints first is bad, because – again – I’m not 22 anymore.
The guys were riled up by an external force again today. Dale – the individual that ran the repipe project – was here picking up his notebook from my downstairs neighbor. So the guys were on high alert, because they sensed a stranger. They were up and active, but neither wanted to walk. They both ran away from me, in their individual normal fashions, when I got out harnesses and leashes. But they both wanted to play. Bubba wanted to play chase, and he was running and leaping into beds. After 3 rounds of chase to the bedroom, he went out onto the deck and pooped. Exercise gets the digestive system working, and he needed to drop some weight for better running and jumping. But that pretty much guaranteed Buddy wouldn’t walk, since Bubba wouldn’t.
Buddy wanted to play tug of war. Bunny is still top of the heap, but the reindeer is starting to gain traction in the race to Favorite Toy.
So we played, while we waited for the day food to get soft. And then while chasing The Alpha, I felt the all-too-familiar slight pop on the top of the kneecap. A very small, but very painful little tear. Old age sucks.