So, our dogs continue to do goofy things.
Magdalena continues to be the self-appointed Great Divide. Huskies are working dogs. They were bred to pull sleds through snowy countryside, running for miles at a time with great stamina and endurance. Magdalena has nothing to do all day except lie around. She’s bored so she makes her own fun, like pulling Sirocco through the house backwards by his tail. I’ve told the wife we need to find something for Magdalena to do. In the meantime, Magdalena has taken to sleeping in the one spot in the house where she can cause the most disruption to traffic. She sleeps in the space dividing the kitchen and dinning room from the living room and bedroom. The wife can’t step over her, and the other dogs are afraid to try to get around her (especially Sirocco) as she snaps at them. I’m the only one who can get past by stepping over her, although sometimes she tries to get up when I’m in mid-step.
This is a problem at 4:00 AM if Sirocco has to go out for a potty break, or if he wants to get to the recliner to sleep on it. He’ll whine, which wakes me up. I’ll have to go out into the living room and stand in such a way as to block him from Magdalena’s head. Then I have to coax him to move past her, which he’ll do, but only after a minute or two of hesitation. Then he charges past her and I have to open the door for him (if he’s going out to potty) or encourage him to jump on the chair (which he can do but much prefers to make me lift him up).
Major has been peeing up a storm inside the house over the last few days. Yesterday he peed in the house on five separate occasions. I don’t know why he has suddenly started doing this. I don’t know if he has a bladder infection, or if he is mad about something, or if he has decided he has to mark everything to claim it as his. Possibly some combination of all three.
The latest goofy thing the dogs are doing, well, two of them at any rate, is guarding their food bowls. Normally I fix their bowls (some soft food mixed with hard kibble) and set them on the floor and they start chowing down. Mainly they are after the soft food but they’ll get around to eating the kibble as well. Sirocco doesn’t always get all his food as he eats the soft food, then abandons his bowl until later. At that point, usually Magdalena, sometimes Major Tom, will go over and finish off his bowl.
Lately though, Sirocco has completely ignored his food bowl. Major Tom and Magdalena will also ignore their food, but they will stand guard over it for almost 24 hours. They will snap at any of the other dogs that come near. The oddest part is Major Tom is guarding Sirocco’s food bowl. Sirocco in turn eats out of Major Tom’s bowl but not very much at a time. There is no rhyme or reason to this behavior as far as I can tell. I just have to keep them from starting fights over the food. This usually happens late in the evening about an hour before bed. Major Tom is the usual inciter, but Magdalena does it sometimes too. I keep the water spray bottle nearby in case I have to grab it and spritz someone in the face to get them to calm down.
I hope your animals, if you have any, are better behaved than ours, my Hordeling.
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