Dinner?

Over the years, Fred, Lamont, and I have developed one of the silliest routines during dinner time.  Breakfast is easy for us.  My alarm goes off.  Fred and Lamont are up and ready to eat.  If I don’t get their breakfast within five minutes, their alarm goes off.  I always hurry downstairs and make their food.  When I place the plate in their cage, they trot over to it and start to chow down.

Dinner isn’t as easy.

I usually get home between 4 and 5 pm each night.  The first thing I do is make the boys dinner.  I head upstairs with their plate and put in the dinning area.  There is always silence.

While I’m waiting for them to eat, I change out of my school clothes and hang the ones for the next day.  Still there is silence from their cage.  Next, I will use the lady’s room and take care of my own personal business.

Still, there is nothing but silence.

This is when I have to go into their cage and ‘wake them up’ for dinner…every day.  I start with Fred.  I will reach my hand into his warm snuggle sack, tickle his butt, and motivate him to move out into the rest of the cage.  Fred usually bolts out after several seconds of butt tickling.  It’s quite the thing to see.  Fred jumps from the bedroom area to the kitchen area and dives into the food bowl.  He gets it.

Next, I have to rouse Lamont.  I will stick my hand in his snuggle sack and tickle his butt.  He will fidget, wiggle, and complain but won’t move!  What a pain.  I have to switch to my second strategy.  It’s a bit of a scoop, grab, and push move on his butt.  I cup his butt in my hand and give him a gentle push forward.  This works on the second or third push.

Lamont will burst out of his snuggle sack, run over into the kitchen area, dive into a hut, and start to loudly complain.  “Dude,” I always admonish him, “Go eat!”  It will take a couple of seconds but Lamont will slowly realize the Fred is chest deep in dinner.  I can tell he has figured out the situation when he starts to whine at Fred.  Finally, Lamont goes over to the dish and will start to eat dinner.

From start to end, this whole dinner process usually takes 30 minutes.  I choose to wait for them to eat before I start my own dinner.  The things we do for our fur kids.  – KA

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