The 8th. Thursday. October.
9 pm
The guys didn’t eat much of their dinner, and I decided that I needed to sit on the floor and hand-feed them treats. Dessert for kids that didn’t eat their peas. I’m such an enabler, it’s pathetic.
I tried the liver treats with Bubba. He stopped wanting them – at least from me, some time ago. When Dr. Cory gave them to him, he was like a madman. He couldn’t get enough. But he had cooled off on them. But tonight, he was agressively eating those, along with broken up bits of True Chews.
After treats, Bubba paced around the living room a while, before heading into the bedroom. Buddy parked himself on the back of the couch, the area closest to the door out to the deck. I was sitting in the recliner, trying to catch up the log on my phone (gave that awful thing up, and went home to use a computer). I figured he wanted to relax near me.
After it got quiet, it struck me that Bubba might have been hoping someone would help him up on the couch. I went to peek around the bedroom door, he looked out at me, and I beckoned him with a wave. He got right up and came out. He did want to be up on the couch.
Buddy didn’t move when I did, because he was parked directly in line of the fan pushing the AC air out. It wasn’t about me at all.
I put Bubba up onto the space I call “Buddy’s perch” and watched to make sure he didn’t try to run off Buddy, which is exactly what he tried to do. I played mediator, and petted Buddy, while motioning Bubba to go up to the spot where he wants to sleep. He doesn’t need to run everyone else out of town. It’s a big couch, and he’s a tiny dude. There was plenty of room for both of them.
Once settled, I started trying to finish the blog (at home), then go back to start clean up.
6:10 pm
Bubba finally wanted to go out. It was cooler, but humid. It was slightly better today, in that I had to “drag” him a little but only to get away from the door. As soon as he got by the stairs, he just walked down in normal fashion, like someone flipped a light switch and he forgot that he was afraid of the stairs. I still kept the same taut leash hold that I did the day before, just in case he slipped, there wasn’t enough slack in the leash to allow a fall. He couldn’t even slip all the way to the ground. His footing was solid though, no issues from the nails, and he galloped down the stairs just fine.
It was a rare walk totally in the complex. We walked over to the dog park to see if there were friends to visit with, but there was just one crazy lady with her dog, so we avoided it.
But they ended up leaving the park area as we circled around, so we went back there. We didn’t see and friends, but we ran into people. We saw Tommy, who we haven’t seen in ages. The guys like Tommy. After saying hi to Tommy, Bubba wanted to go home. There was a bit of a disagreement on that, as Tommy was on his way to the dumpster with a container that had shrimp in it. Buddy’s stomach wanted to follow Tommy, but Bubba was resolute – we were going home.
Leaving the condo was better today.
We walked about 30 minutes, slowly around the neighborhood. We didn’t do any jogging today. Buddy and I did jog a bit on our earlier walk. Both guys pooped.
4:30 pm
Dinner was enthusiastic, and didn’t get eaten. It’s Christy’s fault.
Buddy was lying on the floor outside the kitchen, and Bubba was on the back of the couch. When I brought the food dishes out with dinner, Bubba jumped down off the couch, and Buddy followed me part of the way from the kitchen, but stopped before reaching the coffee table.. Bubba was the first at the bowls, sniffing at one, then the other, then wandering around the living room, sniffing at the air.
They were distracted. Christy was cooking something downstairs that smelled amazing, and Bubba seemed to think that was what was going to be in his dinner dishes.
3:10 pm
Bubba acted like he wanted to go out. He got dressed, even came right to me when I got down on one knee and held out the harness. He came over and steppred right into it himself, but didn’t want to walk. Buddy had read the “we walk” signal from Bubba, and now wanted to go, even though Bubba aborted. We jogged a little. He pooped a lot. He marked a few poles and walls on our way back. But it was a short walk.
2 pm
The dudes still do not want to go back. They are interested in the packages, but I’m not sharing. There were four packages from the UPS store, one piece of mail and a flyer. I still need to get the mail.
11 am
We’ve had another battle casualty. New Bunny lost an ear, too. I already tossed Dead Bunny, and I can’t remember which ear came off – wondering if it’s a batch defect. Buddy doesn’t care how many ears, probably, but not sure if stuff will fall out of the missing ear hole, so bunny is in the infirmary, instead of the morgue.
AC is back on in the living room, still off in the bedroom, where it’s still quite cook. The dudes are sleeping, one on the floor by the piano, the other demanded that I put him on the back of the couch.
I need to run to the post office, and will grab lunch. I’ll also stop at the UPS Store. I’m out of practice and forgot that was part of the job
9:50 am
It’s much more comfortable today. I turned off the bedroom AC unit, and haven’t turned on the one in the living room.
Buddy got dressed, but doesn’t want to walk.
Bubba, showing his agreement about the weather, went outside to lie in the sun on the deck. That would have burned the last couple of days. The deck surface was too hot.
I changed the bathroom pee pad, and left them alone to relax.
9 am
Buddy is pretending to be a teenager today. He still didn’t want to get up. I walked up to him and get in some chin scratching. He rolled onto his back to get some belly scratches, which I would prefer he doesn’t do while on the back of the couch – I don’t want him rolling off.
I put out the day food, now full-marinaded, and was going to leave him alone to get more sleep. But the Alpha came out (how did he know???). Buddy hopped off the couch. Neither guy wanted to walk. Buddy got New Bunny out of the front door bed, but there wasn’t much energy in the gaming mood.
8:05 am
There’s a new bunny in circulation. A late-night round of tug-of-war ended in tragedy, when I found myself holding only an ear. Buddy didn’t seem to notice – he’d gotten the bunny away from me. That he didn’t get the *whole* bunny didn’t matter. So one bunny went out with the trash, and a new one was pulled down from the treats cabinet. In the package, Buddy didn’t seem to know what it was in my hand. A taunting squeak changed that: eyes popped wide open, head popped up, ears stood at attention.
When I left the night before, there were two asleep on the couch. This morning, just one, and Buddy didn’t wake up until I was inside the house. We played hard yesterday. Games inside, running outside – it was good exercise for all three of us. Buddy was too sleepy to guard the castle gate this morning. The Alpha was curled up in the bedroom. It was too early for both of them.
I checked for accidents – none – and put out the day food to marinade, then went home to log and give them another half hour to sleep.