I'm Worn Out

So, my pills make me sleepy, which is fine. On average a dog will sleep about 23 hours a day without medication and it is quite possible that the number I've stated is lower.

Now that I'm on a 3-times a day schedule, I have to wait a full 8 hours between meals. This is barbarous. How can something be expected to thrive when they have to wait that long between meals?

I'm not allowed snacks in the morning because I receive my 1pm pills in tiny sandwiches. Morning and night they are jammed down my throat, but the 1pm is a delicious little picnic of various tiny sandwiches, and then I get my lunch. Something about Toast needing me to be very hungry so I don't chew my pills. It works. I'll gulp those tiny sandwiches down to get to the next tiny sandwich, and then to my lunch because I'm wasting away.

Needless to say, I've been a big fan of my kibble (with just a touch of boiled chicken, a warm water broth and a tiny sprinkly of cheese on top) since this new routine. Bleeder devised a spreadsheet to determine the amount of calories I'm allowed including treats, which isn't nearly the amount of treats I'm used to, but I'm usually pretty full from the soup to care.

Just before my night pills, I get a snack of crunchy plain kibble

This is a good batch of kibbles with a decent shreds ratio

Anywhoooo, since I sleep a lot, Toast and Bleeder have devised new ways to exercise me. Normally they would take me outside and I would play "goalie" by blocking the soccer ball and flinging it back at them, with the occasional skitter jump at them. I like to Parkour off of humans. But currently it is about 350 degrees with 200% humidity, perfect weather to roast a small turkey with stuffing. I'm not going out in that, unless I have to pee and poo, then I'll go out, do that, run back inside.

So, inside games consist of tug of rope and rip an arm off a human. I'm very serious about this game and I will rip an arm off eventually, I am sure of it.

The other game is toss the stuffed toy. I have quite an array of stuffed toys:

I play with Mr. Buttons the bear (who also makes a wonderful pillow... until I ripped all of the stuffing out of him except for his head.

They got me a giant octopus, who lasted about 3 days and then I lobotomized it.

Then I destroyed and gutted a fainting goat.

Then I eviscerated the aligator

Pay no attention to Bleeder's hideous "house" shoes

So far, only blue gator, hedgehog and fishy have survived the crucible.

Hedgie is fun to gnaw on

So, the lessons learned in this are:

• Don't waste your money on the "tough" toys. The overly stuffed, overly sewn on edges are just invitations to chew, rip, and tear out the fluff.
• The GoDog brand of soft squeaker toys last the longest. I'm not saying forever, I'm just saying there's nothing like blowing 20 bucks on an "indestructible" toy only to have it last 5 minutes.
• Always supervise with these stuffed things. Even though I no longer eat the fluff, your pup might and that is NOT a good thing.
• Buy a slightly bigger toy, never a smaller toy. You don't want a choke hazard. I used to take the unstuffed toys and try to cram them into my mouth so Bleeder couldn't take them away from me... I know, I know I shouldn't do that, but I know they go in the trash, I'm just trying to save them.

So, there you have it, now go tell your humans to buy you decent squeaker toys and stop believing the "tough and indestructible" promises. They aren't, you will, and the only difference is the amount of time, so get the GoDog toys and you can get a few weeks of good fun before you break into a violent rage and shred it... as it always happens.

-Casey-