Tuesday, December 8, 2020

My pets are keeping me entertained

I know that I don't speak often of my pets often....or at all but they are a big part of my family. We have 3 dogs and a cat. They all get along very well and they're quite spoiled. They live indoors and the only ones that go out are the dogs; they go out to take care of business and to play...thankfully we have a decent sized property and the backyard is fenced with 8 ft high fencing around 3/4 of the backyard and 6 ft. fencing around the remaining 1/4. Our cat is NOT allowed outside at all; although living in the middle of nowhere, our road is super busy (we have Amazon trucks, 18 wheelers, etc. driving our road daily and they go WAY over the 35 mph speed limit); we used to have indoor/outdoor cats  until the one went into the road and was, unfortunately, run over and died.

We have three large dogs (all over 75 lbs.) and a 12 lb. cat that used to weigh a whopping 18 lbs. Two of our dogs are the same breed and the other comes from the same country and our cat is a rescue cat; a number of years ago, there was some construction done on our road by the river and the construction workers would feed the cat and as they were finishing up their last week, they called the local animal shelter/vet to let them know. The animal shelter/vet found the cat and took him in, checked him out, vaccinated him and named him "Trout". 

We noticed Trout at the animal shelter/vet as we used to take our other pets (the typical cats and dogs) and there was Trout in a cat kennel. He was the cutest and skinniest cat we saw. We made a decision to adopt him that day; the vet believed that Trout was ~1 yr old but we believe that he was closer to 8 months old. We felt bad for him that he was a skinny boy and a little underweight, so we had made sure that his food bowl was at least half full at all times. In a matter of 3 years, a skinny little cat became a chonker of a cat. We did find a mainstream named cat food that has a 'diet cat food' that we've been giving to Mr. Chonker; it's been a slow weight lost for Chonker Boy, but he's lost 6 pounds....think it's taken close to 2.5 yrs for him to lose the weight.

Our dogs are all within their weight range; which is easy since they eat more than their weight in food, they have full access to the backyard and they get taken on walks 3x a week. Boy, do they shed though!! I vacuum everyday; sometimes twice a day and the dogs get brushed twice to three times a week and they're STILL dropping hair everywhere! 

Anyways....that's not what you're here to read about how entertaining my pets are! Mr Chonker acts like he runs the house above us humans and the dogs, but we humans just pretend to go along with that but do agree that he does rule over the dogs. He tries to keep the dogs well behaved; which isn't an issue for the older two since they're 4+ yrs old where as the younger one just turned 2 yrs old a few months ago. 

Chonker Boy and Big Dog - aka the oldest dog - are the BEST of friends; they hang out, sniff each other, Chonker licks Big Dog sometimes and they do take nap time together. Chonker and Little Girl - the only female dog - are pretty tight but not as tight as Chonker and Big Dog. Chonker and Little Girl are like "Princess and the pea" when it comes to sleeping on dog beds and both LOVE to be covered when sitting on our laps. Sometimes Chonker and Little Girl get in a kerfuffle when Little Girl gets too nosy in Chonker's tail end and sometimes she gets a little rough when playing so Chonker takes a few swats at her to get her back in line; this makes Little Girl turn around and start jogging away. 

Now Red Dog - the youngest of our doggy pack - just turned two a few months ago and no matter how hard we try to teach him manners like keeping his toes and nose off the kitchen table and counters (he can sit, heel, etc.) he likes to hunt for trouble inside and outside of the house. Red wants to play with Chonker BUT it's only on Chonker's terms....which is hardly ever! Red doesn't think that he's as rough as he is with Chonker and we DEFINITELY watch when they play! Red likes to lick and sniff every single hair of Chonker Boy but Chonker has little patience for this nonsense of Red's. Once Red indicates that he wants to play with Chonker, Chonker gets ready to swat and hiss at Red. After getting swatted a few times, Red jogs off and chews a bone or plays with a stuffed toy.

Like I said earlier, the backyard is fenced in so we can let the dogs have free reign back there. We tend to let Red Dog out by himself because he runs SO FAST and plows into people when he's running - his 'brakes' aren't the best lol! - and he can burn some energy. As soon as he sees a squirrel or a bird...it's the FUNNIEST thing. He starts storming towards the squirrel or bird but they hear him coming so they go off way before he can reach them! It's funny to watch because he thinks that he's protecting us from wildlife. 

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