Lonnie has been great fun but oh, my goodness! It'll be nice to get rid of him! This big ole lump of set-ways-and-schedule has pooped in my basement four (FOUR!) days in a row now. Of course, each has been completely excusable, and thank goodness he used the concrete floor instead of the wall-to-wall ... ditto that they were solid and not, well, unsolid, if you know what I mean.
Tuesday there was a rush-hour MVA (huge pet peeve of mine) on the way home, plus I had to stop to get Lonnie more food, so was almost two hours late (making it a twelve hour day) and Lonnie just couldn't take it.
Wednesday I didn't watch him closely in the morning and just assumed he went before I left for work ... once again, too long between times.
Yesterday I forgot to pick up the girl's full bowl of food when I let him out, plus I didn't go out with him, and he gobbled all their food up (on top of the full bowl of his food he had just finished) ... so even though he did go in the morning, he was far too full to last very long.
And today I left for work at 3:45am for a third shift event, and got home at 2pm, so just plain messed up his schedule again. I'm actually lucky he's still solid, come to think of it.
In the grand scheme of nuisances, solid poops on the concrete floor of the basement get a teeny-tiny thumbs down compared to, you know - the other kind - on the wall-to-wall carpeting upstairs ... which is exactly what happened when I was watching Brig's Golden Retriever Buddy, who (unbeknownst to me) had never "processed" rawhide before. Doh! Something to tell the sitter, people!
Anyway, a nineteen day dogsit is perhaps a tad longer than I'll sign up for in future (read that as "don't bother asking Lisa to dogsit for longer than one week, ever again, anyone!") ... and being at day seventeen, I am positively itching for a no-Lonnie zone. I'm just so tired! Every day it's get up and feed Lonnie, then let him out, but sit out with him or he'll bark non-stop, then get ready for work, then let Lonnie out again, but sit out with him or he'll bark non-stop, then leave for work, then come home from work and let Lonnie out, but sit out with him or he'll bark non-stop, then feed him again, and let him out again, but (oh, you know this part!), then get ready for bed, then let Lonnie out for the last time, etc.
Go to bed, do it all over again tomorrow. And the second daily "feed Lonnie" part is an event in and of itself, involving 2 parts dry food, 1 part canned food, 4 different meds, water, mixing, and sitting-with-while-eating-to-ensure-no-choking.
What I'm used to is get up, go to work, come home, and in the meantime keep the girls bowls full of food and water (they're on the all-food-all-the-time plan because they've always been and .. luckily for me ... aren't gluttons ... they've never known any different, so only eat when they're hungry). Sometimes two whole days will go by before I have to refill their food bowl (which they share, sweetly, with each other). And unless it's particularly inclimate weather (e.g., 87 degrees or more, or 45 degrees or less, or pounding savage rain, or blizzarding) they practically live outside (by choice), twentyfour-seven.
So you can understand how having Lonnie adds time to my day, which subtracts time from my sleep, which I and my RA-riddled body do not like. I'm up at 5:30am and off to work around 7:30am (ministrating to the Lonster adds approximately 45 minutes to my morning routine) ... then I have to stay at work an extra half hour (because that's how late I am in the morning, but I just can't bring myself to get up at 5am for a dog! and not even my dog at that!). Then the after-work routine adds about an hour and a half ... mostly because the little shite barks so much if I leave him out alone, and I can't keep him in the house all the time, that's got to be doggy abuse or something ... but we have a good time because I basically spend that time sitting on the deck putting the pats on all three of them, and it is peaceful.
So from now on, and into at least the near future, the only doggie houseguest I'll be accepting is Yellow Dog, and that will only happen if one of you manages to sneak him in (for those of you not in-the-know, Yellow Dog is just about the ugliest migratory concrete-painted-black-painted-yellow-yard-ornament-guard-dog that we sneak into each others houses/vehicles/garages etc.) ... you can admire him in the picture above. Yellow Dog has been "found" in car trunks, basements, showers, washing machines, and dryers, on decks and picnic tables, and even once in a pile of pretty white gravel in the middle the front door steps. The little guy gets around.
Back on topic: this last week of having Lonnie has been tricky, and although I'm the first to admit he's a lovely fellow, I'm ready to start missing him, pleas (e.g., ready for him to go home with his people).
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