Monday the 2nd. February.
10 pm
Time to go home. The guys were out cold an hour ago. Bubba got up twice for water, once with a bathroom visit. Buddy has had his head down on his spot on the couch. Tomorrow I’m going to try keeping the cone off while he’s under supervision, as long as he doesn’t scratch. It will make it easier to shampoo and brush the top of his head without the cone, and he will feel better. It needs to be shampooed, because the fur is getting clumped up where the medication doesn’t reach the scalp when I massage it in.
8:15 pm
It’s quiet time. Buddy flopped by the open front door to enjoy the sounds and smells of the outdoors. Bubba has settled in into the front door bed.
An hour before, both guys wanted to join me on the couch. Bubba first, who came up and shark-bumped me with his nose to get my attention. After he was lifted up to curl up on the back of the couch, Buddy wanted to join us. He hopped up on the seat and stared at me for a minute, maybe looking for a shared snack, then he hopped up on the side of the couch opposite of where Bubba had parked, and he put his head down, too.
The guys ate well tonight – all the dinner was gone. Buddy had nibbled the day food a bit, but it wasn’t eaten that much.
5:30 pm
I put the dinner bowls down in the wrong order. I put half of the dinner in the empty side of the silicone bowls, and then filled one of the black bowls. Buddy was taking handouts while I made dinner, and then shadowed me into the living room when I carried the food out. He was hungry. But I should have put the black bowl down first. I couldn’t carry both at the same time, and the silicone bowl had food in both sides – dinner and day food. But as soon as Buddy started eating, Bubba came along to Assert The Alpha and take over the first food. That should have been the black bowl, so Buddy could eat comfortably.
Tomorrow I’ll do them in the right order.
4:05 pm
Both guys are snoring. Well, were snoring. As soon as I started writing, Buddy woke up and repositioned himself on the back of the couch to face the door, and is lying on his belly, staring outside. I don’t know for what – there’s not much of a view, apart from my stairs.
And before I could finish the first paragraph, Bubba stopped snoring – but wa
3:45 pm
Buddy has finally decided he can eat from the silicone dish, and I think he likes it. It doesn’t interfere with his cone at all, and he can just walk right up and get a mouthful of food without navigating the terrain. But then he takes the food and drops it on the floor, and picking it back up becomes and issue because of the cone. If he would just eat straight from the bowl, he’d be fine.
Bubba has curled up in the front door bed to doze off.
2:20 pm
Finally got Bubba out for a walk. We went out the gate to PCH and around, and down the path. It was long and slow. Neither guy pooped. We walked 4o minutes.
11:50 am
Buddy finally went out, but I practically had to carry him. It was a short walk, a bathroom break only. He had to go bad. But Bubba is in slackermode and won’t let me get anywhere near him with a harness, or even to try to pick him up to put him on the couch. It is absolutely perfect out, and they don’t want to walk.
Neither guy is eating the day food.
8:50 am
I was late. Extra coffee was required today. The guys called me over 10 minutes before I wanted to go. A plumbers was visiting next door, and Buddy barked once. The Alpha knew he was supposed to bark at something, so he joined in at warning the intruder he couldn’t hear.
I went over to calm things down, and I became the proxy for the intruder and he barked and howled at me for a while. Buddy ran over with his bunny. He needed me to throw it. He wanted to run. Bubba wanted to be chased. Neither guy wanted to run.
Bubba pooped in the bathroom, and out on the deck, but that was to be expected, since he didn’t get an evening walk in.
I put the silicone low-profile bowls on the counter last night, which is good, because I would have forgotten that I was using them today otherwise.