Category: Sparky (Page 43 of 51)

Sparky may have a wandering eye.  Not in the Bill Clinton, man-whore, way.  The dog pound cut his nuts off before they handed him over.  I mean in the amblyopia way I recall from those after-school specials they used to have on TV.  The kid with the lazy eye gets picked on until his mom takes him to the doctor.  He still gets picked on because he has to wear an eye patch.  A kind Art teacher makes him a pirate eye patch and he becomes popular on the playground.

That was back when pirates were the Treasure Island kind, and not the skinny Somali pirates we have now.

While I’m having dinner, Sparky will chide me for being fat, hoping I will give my food to him.  I tried a counter-strike by making fun of his lazy eye.  It didn’t work.  Sparky says that he trained himself to do that.  He said that when one eye hits a hard-stop because his nose is in the way, his other eye can sweep a little farther.  That additional field of view gives him a predator advantage.

Sparky says that’s also why he occasionally blinks one eye at a time.  He wants to maintain his sight picture.  That’s good to know.  I thought he was flirting with me.

I didn’t ask why he needed a predator advantage when his main prey is dead birds and baby bunnies.  He had a full life before he retired with me.  Sparky doesn’t talk about it much, but I get the sense that he was involved in some dodgy work.

When Sparky is busting my chops, I can go back to pointing out that he doesn’t have the ground clearance he had when I picked him up.

Last night, Sparky explained the spirit animal business.

As Sparky was patrolling the back yard, I thought I’d have a beer and enjoy the evening.  Sparky spilled my beer as he was attempting an innovative new way to get on my lap.  He drank some of it. 

When we went outside for the last time of the night, Sparky was pensive.  Not eager to pursue, but concerned and observant.  Something was out there, and he wasn’t sure what.

Sparky didn’t think it was prudent to take a dump, so we came inside.  To minimize wet footprints all over the house, I send him to his crate to wipe his feet.  Sparky wouldn’t go in his crate.  He likes his crate, taking naps in there and going in prior to every meal.  That was odd.

This morning, I was curious for Sparky to investigate the grounds.  He told me about the coyotes, so I documented his report.

Sparky’s gut was making extraordinarily loud gurgling noises last night.   Loud enough that it was audible, 10 feet away, with my CPAP on.  When I’m asleep, Sparky has limited options to resolve an urgent intestinal issue.  He wouldn’t dream of barking or howling to wake me up.  If the situation were dire, he might make some decisions that, in the morning, I’d find appalling.  

We stayed up and talked for a while, then he went outside to eat some grass.  His situation has improved today, but we haven’t come to a consensus on the cause of the problem.

Sparky insists that since he has completed his course of antibiotics, his gut hasn’t adapted to the lack of peanut butter and gravy in his food.

I believe that Sparky should stop eating rotten garbage that he finds in the woods.

Sparky tolerates a bath, but he doesn’t see the point.

Just another picture of Sparky enjoying a car ride.

Sparky keeps hoping that I’ll come out of the store with a can of Pringles or a slim jim. 

Sparky takes umbrage at being told he has to cut weight.

He accused me of fat-shaming him.  I was, so that line of argument wasn’t persuasive.

He said that he was just big-boned.  I explained that his bones didn’t get bigger in a month.

He has been packing on muscle from fighting that coyote and running down rabbits.  I reminded him that he prefers baby snatching to bunny chasing.

I’m not making excuses when I say that it’s not his fault that he’s been packing it on.  Well, except for eating babies and garbage he finds in the woods.  That’s on him.  Sparky has been on doxycycline all month after our vet visit.

Sparky is averse to taking pills, so measures were taken to hide the antibiotic.  The capsule is dipped in peanut butter, then mixed in with his dog food.  A bit of gravy is dripped on the capsule blob and the rest of his dog food.  The success rate is about 95%.  Last time he was on doxy, it was about 60%.

Sparky is in bad dog jail for insubordination.

In the woods, right behind his dog house, Sparky found a clutch of baby rabbits.  Prior to relieving himself, Sparky sniffs around a little bit and probes the edge of the woods.  He stuck his head into the brush, his back legs were still on the lawn, and came out with a baby bunny in his mouth.

This is his fifth baby bunny.  Watching him, it seemed like a fat guy who cheats on his diet by hiding Girl Scout cookies all over the house.  Sparky goes to this spot all the time, so it looks like the rabbits are setting him up.

Sparky is a baby-snatcher.  That is known.  This time, Sparky did the math.  Would I pry his mouth open before he could swallow it?  I told him to drop it, Sparky turned his head and chomped a little.  We went through that routine a few times, then it was gone.  Insubordination cannot be tolerated.

When Sparky is free-roaming and pokes into the woods, I call him if he is in too long.  I wonder if it would be better not to call him out.  Sparky would back out when he’s done eating.  I have little sympathy for the rabbits.  They have to evolve more robust maternal instincts.  I wouldn’t think that baby bunnies are bad for him.  I can’t be sure he’s eating babies, is in a stand-off with a skunk or found a carcass.