The Joys of Furry Friends

No, not those kind of furry friends. (Although I will readily admit I've had many of those over the course of my life.) I'm talking about the four-legged variety.

So once again I found myself wide awake at 4 am this morning. This time however, it is not from worry about Trump's bombastic pronouncements to Korea; it was from a dog with diarrhea.

Bobo, our little pirate (so called because he has only one eye) came to live with us a couple years ago via Ben's mom (a story any longtime reader of this blog is well aware of).

He has a crack habit.

His crack is the canned, wet version of Natural Balance Duck & Potato dog food.

We initially started purchasing this as a means of delivering a daily medication in a balled-up teaspoon of the stuff to Sammy, our other dog, since I'd read that peanut butter (our prior delivery system of choice) really isn't all that great for dogs. Of course, we can't give something to one without giving it also to the other, so that's how it started.

More recently Bobo's turned into quite the picky eater (it's allowed, he's an old man at 11 years). We discovered that mixing a bit of this wet food in with his kibble in the morning ensures that he eats it all before Sammy swoops in and finishes off what ever Bobo's left. (According to Ben, Bobo has always been a grazer, eating when he wanted to and not being forced to wolf down the entire bowl at a single sitting. Living with Sammy, however, has forced him to "eat it or lose it" when it's put down.

Well, occasionally as a treat we've been giving both dogs just the wet food for dinner. It's literally gone in 30 seconds, even when Bobo's portion goes into one of those special slow-eatin' bowls.

We'd been giving each of the critters about an ounce and a half of the wet food; the same amount of the chopped log variety we normally give them in the evening. Upon reading the can, however, it was recommended for dogs of their size, they be given an entire can plus.

Ah, no. That isn't going to happen. Last night, however I did give them each half a can. BIG mistake. All was well and good until sometime in the middle of the night I was aware of Bobo trying to get back on the bed. The poor lil' guy doesn't have the strength in his back legs that he used to, so most of the time he has to be picked up. I didn't think too much of it; he gets down occasionally to go relieve himself (finally trained to use the puppy mats we have put down), but the fourth time he got down I figured I better get up and see what was going on.

As I headed down the hall in the dark in my bare feet (you know where this is going, right?) I stepped in it. Twice. I turned on the light and saw a string of deposits leading to the den door. It was obvious the way Bobo was dancing around that he needed to relieve himself again, so I turned off the alarm and he rushed outside while I cleaned up the mess (and Ben slept blissfully on).

Now anything that comes out of Bobo has never been particularly aromatic, but this…I almost hurled. When he came back in, we went back to bed and I slept—fitfully—until I heard him jump down again around 6. This is the normal time they get me up so I let them both out. Ten minutes after coming back inside Bobo started doing his "I have to go outside NOW" dance in the den. Let's just say I still didn't get him back outside quickly enough.

After cleaning that mess up it was then that I discovered his initial middle-of-the-night deposit on the new living room rug…because of course where else would he do it?

I have a feeling it's going to be a long day.