Pence's Sleepover Part 2

Last Friday, we shared a story about how Riley and I were going out of town for a few days and Pence was having a sleepover with Boo, Beth, and JT. As of last Friday’s newsletter, Pence still had not eaten any of her food. She was a little anxious, but had claimed the middle couch cushion as “her spot”.

I texted Beth to check in on Pence once or twice a day. Trying not to be too annoying, but also wanting to know how she was adjusting. Friday night, about 48 hours into her stay, I asked for an update.

I received the above photo of Pence sleeping on her middle couch cushion, with the caption “She hasn’t eaten dog food yet but I think a gold fish could dogsit her.” I wasn’t surprised that she hadn’t eaten yet. After all, it took several days for her to eat after she initially came to Indiana. Also not surprised at how easy she is to look after. Blair and Q did tell us she was an easy keeper! As long as she has food, water, and a place to nap, she’s happy. Pence did ask for occasional belly rubs while on the couch.

About a half hour later, I received more texts from Beth: “WE HAVE KIBBLE EATING!” and “Does she always eat and drink so loud?”

Yay! Good girl! She ate her dog food sooner than I thought she would! But yes, when she eats and drinks it is quite loud lol. I noticed that from day one. She really slurps the water and chomps on the food. Maybe we just aren’t used to that because Boo more or less inhales his.

Then another text from Beth: “How quick after eating does she poop?”

no response

Beth: “Hello” “This is an urgent matter”

I had warned Beth and JT before I left that whenever she does eat, like clock work, she immediately has to go outside and poop lol. Doesn’t matter if she was just outside right before she ate or not. Alas, she was let outside and no accidents were had.

Saturday’s update from Beth noted that Pence had definitely taken more of a liking to JT rather than Beth. Interesting, because she had met Beth several times previously, and not JT. But as I mentioned before, she seems to favor males in general more than females.

Sunday’s update noted that Pence had still been eating her kibble. She had also been going on two walks a day, which is more than she’s used to, especially after being off of basically all physical activity for a month while she healed from surgery. But she really seemed to enjoy it.

Monday evening, JT was grilling stakes for Beth and himself for dinner. The steaks slipped off the plate and landed on the patio outside (don’t worry, JT, we know you just wanted to share with the doggos…). Being near where the dogs do their business, Beth opted not to eat the steak, and gave some to Boo and Pence instead. They’ve really come to love steak around here. They’re always getting a least a bite or two.

Soon after, Pence put herself to bed.

Originally, we had planned to pick Pence up from Beth’s on Monday evening once we landed back in town. But, we ended up not getting back until after 11 pm so we opted to wait until Tuesday morning.

When I arrived at Beth’s house on Tuesday, I rang the doorbell. Neither dog came to see who was at the door, they were both napping upstairs. I called for them and Boo immediately came flying down the stairs and jumped on me. Pence was a little slower, peered around the wall and cautiously walked down the stairs.

She seemed happy to see me, tail wagging and all, but I also think she was a little nervous. When we started packing up her belongings and loading them in my car, she definitely became more anxious, shaking, probably feeling like “I just settled in here and now I’m moving again?!”.

Pence gave me a look like “You better not leave me again. I won’t forget this.”

We headed back home. When we arrived, she jumped out of the car and was very excited to go inside, back to her home. I took her leash off, and she ran right to her couch and settled in for a snooze.

Overall, I think she ended up having a good time at her sleepover. I think it was tougher on us than her lol. But it’s good to know that she will be just fine staying somewhere else for a few days if we need to go out of town. Especially if her best friend Boo is nearby. Thanks to Beth and JT for taking care of her!

Speaking of Pence’s best friend Boo….HE’S BACK!!!

On Wednesday, Boo returned to our house now that Pence is fully healed from surgery. I (Riley) took the dogs on a 1.5 mile run on the scooter last night and they were so amped up! We took a bit of a detour from our longer route because a car was driving towards us as soon as we left the driveway (you can see the headlights in the photo below). So instead of going straight, the we took an immediate left. I was yelling “haw” to get them over to the left side of the road and they reacted and took the full left turn instead. Miscommunication at it’s finest.

When we take this route, the dogs typically don’t run as well. This is because we have to stop and turn around at the end of a road, which can be a challenge. And then once we start heading towards home, they don’t want to stop. They want to keep running until they’re back in the driveway. But if we did that, it would only be about a half mile run. So we have to stop them again and get them turned around.

And this turn around is the tricky one. They know they’re close to home and refuse to run AWAY from home for a second time. They get visibly annoyed and try to resist turning around. We’ve tried everything we can think of to make the process smoother, but we usually have to have one of us holding the neck line running beside them to get them started again.

So yeah, this route isn’t the best for consistent running, but we didn’t want to miss an opportunity to get them running together again. When they were running, though, they were flying! You could tell they were loving it and had been dying to get back on the run. After several weeks, they were finally back in their natural habitat.

Unfortunately, the GoPro died 15 seconds into the run and Hannah’s photography skills in the dark were subpar, so this is the only evidence of it.

You had one job, Hannah…

But no worries! There will be plenty of opportunities in the near future for more runs. Hopefully we’re done with the extreme cold and get into the 40s and low 50s for a few weeks in March. That’s perfect weather to run the dogs, and more preferable for us.