Day 5

Written by Mason

I'll start with a little story from last night. Erin can attest that I have soft-heart for whimpering puppies and Cooper started barking/whining, so I got out of bed to go check on him. Erin couldn't even hear him as he is in the garage and our bedroom is on the opposite corner of the house in addition to the fact that we keep our bedroom door closed at night. So I checked on him and he immediately quieted down. I went back to bed but he immediately started barking again and I just couldn't sleep. I got up again but this time I wrapped Cooper in a fresh towel and held him in my lap in the dark garage. Cooper fell asleep and I set him back in the crate still wrapped in the towel. In the morning when I checked on him he was still asleep wrapped in the towel.

The previous day, I had noticed a funny spot on Cooper's right thigh. I had forgotten to point it out to Erin but this morning I did. Erin confirmed my suspicions that it was another BB. She was able to remove it from the skin as it was not embedded deeply. She squeezed it out leaving behind a little red crater.

I've been working from home this week and yesterday's blessing of a bark felt like today's curse at one point. I heard Cooper start barking so I went to check on him and he wanted attention. However, I needed to work so I had to just leave him alone in the garage. For what felt like an eternity even though it was only a half-hour or so he barked. When he stopped barking I checked on him just in case and he had tired himself out and was sleeping.

During his feedings today he started wandering and exploring which made it much harder by myself to change out towels and pee-pads while keeping an eye on him. I had kind of gotten spoiled by him just laying around after he had been fed.

Lessons learned as I handle Cooper:

• Paper disposable bowls are fine for food but are not good water bowls (we have since switched to plastic for water)
• Setting the water in the corner of the crate tends to get spilled by Cooper trying to get out. Moved the  bowl closer to the middle and also made a box stand so it would be harder to tip over.
• Keeping cleanliness safe guards are real tough even if ours are fairly simple. I've contaminated flashlights, truck floor mats, cooler, and probably many more. Probably need to stop wearing flip-flops when handling Cooper but I tend not to think about it till I'm already handling him. Sleeves would be nice but I'm not sure how to handle that because I don't want to start trashing shirts.

Cooper receiving his morning dewormer