Eat with the Animals, Drink with the Animals

Abbie has a special attachment to our pets. We watch the fish before she goes down for her nap. Her first smile went to the dog, and her best giggles still go to the dog. Her best walking episodes come as a result of hunting kitties. There’s a good chance she’ll grow up to be someone who works with animals regularly, like a veterinarian, or a Vegas novelty performer like Siegfried and Roy. Abbie now has a couple of new animal related behaviors to discuss, at great length if need be.

I mentioned in earlier posts Abbie’s obsession with dog food, as well as her new favorite game, Putting Stuff in Its Place. Abbie has a new variant of this game called Dumping Stuff all over the Floor that she loves playing with the dog food. She will sit next to the dog food dish, dig out a baby-sized handful of kibble, and open her hand to dump it all over the floor. She’ll then stare at her handiwork for a few seconds admiring the effects of gravity, the grab some more dog food and repeat the process. The first time I saw her do this I hoped she had found a source of perpetual entertainment by alternately playing Dumping Stuff all over the Floor and Putting Stuff in Its Place, but sadly she hasn’t discovered that she can chain the two games together yet. Dumping Stuff all over the Floor usually ends when she gets bored and wanders off to chew on a toy. It also often ends when she tries eating some kibble, and I deposit her far away from the dog food. Either way, the result is I pick up dog food while grumbling about our dog and her slow eating habits.

After I leave Abbie far away from the dog food, sometimes she works her way into the kitchen where she can play Dumping Stuff all over the Floor with the Tupperware in our cabinets. Once all Tupperware within reach is strewn across the floor, sometimes she will wander over to the pet’s water dish. We have a fancy water dish for our pets with an electronic pump to constantly filter the water, and a large reservoir to hold enough water to theoretically keep our pets hydrated for an entire 24-hour period. I say “theoretically” because our cats have discovered that they can play in the running water, batting at it and knocking it out of the dish, and it will almost never run out of water. The result is 20 hours after I filled it, the dish will be dryer than a can of Foster’s in Russell Crowe’s recycling bin, a large subdivision of the kitchen will be a dangerously slippery water hazard, and the offending cat will be camped in the bathtub looking for a new source of water. Abbie recently discovered the joys of splashing water out of dish herself. This is very bad because she can cup her hands to drain the dish faster than Colin Farrell can drain a bottle of Guinness. Abbie also soaks herself when she splashes in the dish. This creates a prematurely saturated diaper, a slippery baby, and a need for a change of clothes. The cats will also soak themselves when they play in the water dish, but this is less of a problem since they can lick themselves dry, or even use Ellie’s side of the bed to dry themselves if needed. I’m not happy that Abbie apparently learned from the cats to play in the water dish, but I would be happy if she would learn from the cats to dry herself. I will be concerned, though, if she learns to incorporate the cats into a magic act.