Little Horace continues to be ‘special’. Ian and I were saying that the nice thing about having a little dog like Horace, is that even tiny steps forward are rewarding to see. I am currently trying to get him to follow me outside at his meal times. And he’s yet to get outside to where he has his food in one go, sometimes heading off in the wrong direction, other times heading back into the house or he gets distracted, but sometimes he is better than others. It’s such an achievement when he gets at least near where he’s supposed to be (it is in the same place every day). It seems amazing that we celebrate a dog getting near where his food is! Normally our problem is that they are all waiting for their food and then gulp it down in seconds.
We changed his water bowl as his first one got broken, and it’s taken him some time to get used to the new one, which admittedly is a frying pan, which could be confusing, but he’s not to know that. He doesn’t seem to be able to drink if the water level is low. Instead he puts his paws into the water and splashes it around.
He’ll be neutered soon, and when he is, I’m going to ask them to take a look at his teeth, as he still doesn’t eat properly. While he doesn’t make the grinding noise any more, he does seem to drop a lot of food when he is eating and only seems to crunch on one side, which might suggest that his jaw is misaligned as the vet said it might be. It doesn’t matter, but it just helps us understand him a little more and the more we understand him the better we can care for him.
He plays quite a bit and I wish some of the others would play with him. They are inclined to ignore him, but I am sure he’d love to have a game of chew with them (and it would be better him playing chew with them than trying to play with my elbow when I am typing). Pixie is normally excellent with the blind dogs, she actually will put her leg in front of them so they can feel where she is to play, but she just ignores little Horace.
We’ve started reviewing audiobooks again, and need to get back into the pattern of listening to them. We stopped last summer and have fallen out of the habit, but it’s something that’s quite fun to do.