It sucked walking him on that ice and slush Tuesday night, but oh well, that's the life of a dog owner. You know it's bad when Larry's slipping. However, in good news, I did bungee the little garbage can that Heather bought me to the back stairs landing, so if I don't want to go to the dumpster right then, I can use that. I can't imagine using it in the summer. Good idea getting the snap on lid.
Anyhow, he wakes me up at 4:50 Wednesday morning by pawing at the back of my head. Good in a way, because he had to pee. Bad, cause he didn't poo. So I go back to bed (after it took him forever to settle down) and slept til 6:30. At least I think I slept. So I figured I'd take him out after he ate. Well, he wouldn't let me rest my eyes and listen to the news, so I tried to feed him. He wasn't interested in eating. So I ate my Cheerios. While I'm halfway through the second bowl, I see him take two sniffs while walking in the living room and I know exactly what's going to happen. Sure enough, he hunches up to crap and I'm yelling at him and I'm trying to push his back to a straight position, but to no avail. Crapped right on the floor. So I flushed it, thoroughly washed my hands, and finished my breakfast. Then he ate just fine. I showered and then we took a nice short walk in the freezing drizzle walking through the slush. Good times! So that was my morning. Not fun and I'm a little irritated from sleepiness and poo. I guess it's not that he drove me crazy, but it was just one of those moments. You'd think if he was going to poo in the house, he'd have the decency to wait until I finished my Cheerios!
At any rate, he's doing a good job so far of not going to the bathroom during my workday. Three days, no problems. But boy is he ready to get outside when I get home.
I still think he might not be eating enough. He's eating and happy when he is, but when he's done, he's done for good. However, he's not getting near the cup to cup and a half that the food bag recommends. He's probably getting 8/10ths of a cup a day. The vet had mentioned that he just might not be a big eater (and he seemed happy about that because the dog won't have weight problems then).
As far as training goes, I've been a little lax since I've been back at work. But we did work Monday and last evening. Wow does he love those Bil-Jac treats. He's got sit perfect. He'll even do it when he's hyper and distracted. He's doing down very well, but has problems if he's distracted. Not big problems at all, just sometimes not responsive. He'll get there. Like I mentioned before, it's not your classic down, he more puts his head down and then flops on his right hip. Works for me. Stay is not going so well. So I'm trying to increase the length of his sits, hoping that he'll let me back away. He's doing well with come. Problematically for all of these commands though is that he's much more responsive to the hand gestures than the voice command. Not to say that he won't do it by voice, but he seems much more cued to the visual rather than the aural. Don't know if that means anything or not, but just thought I should make a note of it.
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Don't go by "food bag recommendations". They are primarily to sell more dog food, and are classically way more than most dogs need. If he's at a healthy weight, don't worry about it!
ReplyDeleteGood to know! I certainly don't want to overfeed him, but I don't want him to be hungry. He's kind of a Skinny Minny in my eyes. I just don't want him to get sick from not eating enough.
ReplyDeleteAs always, thanks for the advice!