For a guy who never had his own dog, it was very good luck that Sparky was the dog I ended up with.  It is amazing how similar we are:

  • We both generally like people, but are pretty judgemental. 
  • We are both getting on in years, but don’t want to act our age. 
  • We both need a CPAP machine. 
  • We both can tell a story, but swear we aren’t making any of this shit up.

There are many more similarities, but the ball pit has revealed a big difference.

I have never been a night snacker.

I shop in the husky aisle, so that isn’t a flex.  I don’t get out of bed to go to the fridge or have a jar of peanuts in the night stand.  It’s not self-denial, I just don’t wake up hungry in the night.  With the ball pit, Sparky is shown to be firmly on the side of midnight snacks.

We have been working with the ball pit.  I scatter some treats in the ball pit, and like a trained monkey, Sparky jumps in.  There are 390 balls in there, so Sparky is never certain that he’d gotten all the treats.

Last night, Sparky came in to bed as usual.  This morning, there are balls all over the place and Sparky is sacked out 6 feet from the snack pit.

It seems a little pathetic.  Not Hunter Biden pathetic, more like the Üter Zörker level.  Üter was unable to resist eating the chocolate from his science fair exhibit.

I’m not sure what to make of it.  The treats are these dental dog chews that aren’t very appealing at all.

They seem like the heart-healthy version of a churro.  

The snack pit is here because Sparky needs more indoor hobbies.  It isn’t working out the way I had anticipated, but Sparky likes it.   That was the goal.

He only chews up rolling balls, and there are probably twice as many as we need.  Sparky doesn’t intentionally scatter the balls, and they aren’t a chore to collect.  As the ball level drops, those two problems may cancel each other out.  Balls cost ten cents, so it doesn’t matter if more are needed in a few months.

The dental churros are so wretched, they probably won’t draw ants.  The snack pit will need to be vacuumed regularly, but that’s not difficult.

Maybe all of his dog toys can be thrown in there, that would clean up the place.  Right now, my house looks like a toddler’s family room.

If I ever come out in the morning, and find Señor Piglet passed out in the snack pit, we may need to stage an intervention.