Wednesday the 29th
3:50 pm
We went for a very short walk. Bubba started poking me in the leg, which I didn’t read as “hey, walk time”. He walked off and got into a bed in the bedroom. I followed him in with a leash. He turned and saw me, and I held up the leash for him to see, and he jumped out of the bed to go out.
We went across the street again. The walk was only about 20 minutes. Bubba wanted to go home pretty quickly. Buddy pooped, Bubba did not.
12:40 pm
Bubba got up and went out to sit on the pee pad on the deck. He looked me right in the eye when I came to the door to look. I said, “do you know you’re sitting on a toilet?” He responded by lying down. I apologized to him for not putting out the deck bed. As soon as I put it out he got up and walked onto the bed, but he didn’t stop, and continued into the dog door into the bedroom. I could hear his little feet walking back out, so I stood just outside the bedroom door. When he came around the corner, he shot me a look of surprise, as if it was magic that I was at the other door a moment ago, and teleported to the bedroom.
He wandered into the living room and sat down by the door. I got up and grabbed his harness off the end table. He got up and moved away from me toward the fireplace bed. Despite Bubba giving me the cold shoulder on walking, Buddy sensed that we were walking, and he jumped down off the couch. He was right, as he always is. I put Buddy’s harness on, and Bubba came over to get dressed too.
We went for a good stroll around the park. We walked for 55 minutes, neither guy pooped.
12:10 pm
Bubba got up out of bed, so I tried, unsuccessfully, to get him dressed to get out for our first walk. Buddy had been sleeping on the couch behind me while I worked. He watched me get the harness and try to connect with Bubba, but he never raised his chin. His ability to sense whether or not we’re going for a walk was working – he knew that we weren’t going.
11 am
The dudes are sleeping. After the guys not wanting to go out, I came back to log about being paged, and grab a coffee, and when I got back Buddy had pooped and peed on the deck (and pad).
The breakfast is almost gone. I think the cat food with liver treats might be a mistake, and the guys were refusing other food, thinking they could be dealt treats to eat, exclusively. I have to figure out how to handle this. It’s a great way to get them to eat the pro-biotics and glucosamine, but I don’t want them skipping their normal food and waking up starving.
9:05 am
While logging, I got paged. Nothing was happening. They both still didn’t want to go out, Bubba was just calling me for the sake of calling me. He howled at me to play after I got there. Buddy alternated between gaming and grabbing mouthfuls of kibble. Both guys were eating – I’m not surprised after they left so much food yesterday.
8:15 am
I was early. Buddy got up, but he had been in the fireplace bed. Bubba was asleep under the blanket in the front door bed.
There were no accidents, but the bathroom pee pad needed changing. The deck pad had not been touched – maybe because of the chill in the air.
While getting breakfast ready, Bubba got up. Both guys hovered by the front door, but they would both scramble into beds if I picked up the harnesses and approached them. We repeated this several times. Both guys wanted to play. Bubba just wanted to chase around the living room, not the entire house. Buddy wanted to play various tug and taunt games with the bunny. I need to get my flexibility back so I can get down on the ground again for proper Gatekeeper sessions. He has a strong advantage being so low to the ground when I have trouble bending!