Your weekend routine

In case you don’t know by now, and if you’re a dog owner, dogs are very very smart.
Every Saturday and Sunday morning at 630, I’m woken up by my pug Zek and my chocolate lab Fyn. They even watch me put my clothes on. If I put on sweats and a jacket, they instantly run upstairs because it’s dog park day. If it’s jeans or slacks, then it’s workday.
By about halfway to the dog park, the lab starts to bark, as if she’s saying “Birds and bunnies......we’re on our way.....see you in a bit.”
Half hour or so at the park, they’ll both run up to me and say “Ok.....we’re done here......it’s time for breakfast.”
Then to the local Sonic drive-through for 2 junior breakfast burritos. The Sonic is so used to seeing the dogs, they normally have a hotdog ready for the each of them when we pull up to the drive through window.

 

There is nothing routine about my weekends.

 

My 2 like it when there’s other dogs there, but they love it by themselves.
Zek looks at Fyn when she starts barking on the way as if to say “Dumbshit.....they know we’re coming. “

 

Get up.
Give cat her kidney pill. Feed cat.
Give dog arthritis pill. Give other dog treat so he won't feel left out.
Give dog joint supplement. Give other dog treat so he won't feel left out.
Survey floor for any messes dog may have left overnight. Clean as necessary.
Take dogs for two-mile walk in neighborhood or nearby woods, depending on how wet ground is.

I have old animals.

 

I have cats who are more than willing to while away most weekends on the couch with me. If I'm not working (and currently, trying to stay close to home because, COVID), I may not actually have a face-to-face conversation with anyone between leaving work on Friday and returning to work Monday morning.

If I had dogs, I would definitely be more active, going out on the weekends for walks and going to a nearby hiking area a lot. But then there's days like yesterday, where the wind blew nonstop all day at least 50 mph and the sky was brown with all the dirt in the air and I was happy I could blissfully hang inside all day.

(None of this is to say I don't want a dog. I do. I just don't have a house with a backyard and I sometimes do work long hours where I can't get home to take them out. If I had a backyard, I would totally have a dog.)

 

We give our two cats dry food, but one of them loves having some wet food, so we give him half a spoonful each morning for breakfast. It’s the one time of day he likes us.

He’ll sleep on our bed most of the night, or in the chair in my room that I use to work remotely. But when it’s breakfast time, he lets us know he wants his food. Even if it means jumping off the top of my nightstand onto our bed like Superfly Snuka jumping off the top rope onto his opponent.

My wife also will tell him it’s bedtime when she goes to bed, and he’ll follow her up the stairs to our bed.

 

Animals 100% know one set of clothes/shoes means one thing and others mean something different.

 

My cat shoves his butthole right in the face of weekends. If getting fed is good enough at 5 in an on the weekdays, it’s perfect for the weekends. Then I try to get a couple extra hours of sleep while cat and his brother chase each other. Then it’s various places to sleep: by the door, cat tree, in the closet, human lap and rinse-lather-repeat until dinner.

My cats aren’t a year old yet so they have never known a noncovid time. Wife and I wonder what they will do when both of us are gone during the day.

 

Yes. When I pull a pair of sweatpants on ... aka "the play pants" ... my dog knows we're either going on a walk or to the dog park.

Jeans or Dockers means work/church.

 

We've got two dogs, a 15 yr female choc lab (rescue dog when she was about 4) and a 9 yr male Australian Shepherd (raised since a puppy).

They are definitely creatures of habit. They have to be walked separately. Wifey takes care of both most of the time, my tasks are to walk the Aussie in the AM every day and PM as well on weekends. He doesn't know its walktime based on clothes but once I get the leash he's energized.

Lab is getting really close to the end; she can barely hold her bladder, accidents are more and more frequent these days; whereas I used to hit tennis balls with a wedge 4 ft from her and she would grab them out of the air without them getting past her, she pretty much stumbles around outside barely staying upright until she does her business. Now, once 8:30 hits, she's demanding to go outside every 5-15 mins (we have to carry her down 4 steps otherwise she'd break something now) until she is down for the night around 10:30, so my wife is going crazy since she has to stay in the kitchen with her and hope she settles down and waits until she lies down for the night.