#fbw rambles

So Emma made a Poor Decision this morning that at least turned out much much better than it could have! But still gave me half a panic attack at work & I need her to not do this to me again, good lord.

Back story: we started doing "adventures" into the front yard with Emma, so that if she did get out there sometime, she wouldn't panic and disappear. She tends to stick with our other dogs, and we're on a quiet side street, so it seemed worth the risk to do supervised yard time to familiarize her with the different area.

Well, the lose part of this - Emma apparently slipped out the front door with Jack & Arte leaving for work this morning, and wasn't noticed bc small black dog & dark. Why she got it into her head that 6 am would be adventure time when normally it takes active encouragement & someone staying with the door open..... no clue.

Anyway, luckily it wasn't 100F outside today. Unluckily, it was raining! Luckily, Joel was off work today and home. Unluckily, he didn't get up and realize something was wrong until 9. So my poor pup was out in the rain for 3 hours!

Win - I doubt she did go explore at all, she did not get hurt, she was on the front step and bouncing at the door when Joel realized. So I guess the adventures did serve that purpose??

He isn't able to touch her so he couldn't dry her off (heck, idk that I would've been allowed to dry her off after all that either), but put towels down in her couch corner and let her snuggle into those. And made her a pot of plain white rice, her favorite treat!

Crab Con kicked my dumb ass in gear & reminded me it's SUMMER and the crabs are busy & hungry. I got their pool filters working properly again, which fixed that anxiety. Still working on grain mites, but they're decreasing at least.

Anyway I've gotten the VIP box and one order and been giving them lots of food, so they're having a blast now! 2 more orders came in tonight, and I still have a few to go. One of those is a bunch of 3D printed foraging feeders, which I'm really excited about!! And I have some plans for other things to start improving their tank again & giving them more enrichment.

These two are just the cutest. We've been really happy so far with how well they've fit into the household. Their care has really been quite easy, and we're really happy with how our set up has been working.

Bonding wise, Posy rumblestruts every once in a while, usually after human disruption. But it's for a few seconds & then he quits with no reaction from Rosy. They happily share veggies, still love their mounds of hay, etc. Not seen any issues with the hammocks or the wood tunnel that we've added so far! Posy loves to climb on the left hammock & Rosy has learned it from him & loves the extra cover.

Schedule wise, they get hay fluff & pellets scattered in the morning. Fluff again in afternoon & often some grass or foraged food. And evening is veggies along with fluff. Hay gets added as needed if it feels sparse or is getting too trampled/dirty to fluff. And I ordered a 50lb box of Blue Mountain hay on chewy & it's wonderful, seems really nice quality & really easy to separate!

Set up wise, the shavings are perfect tbh, they get a ~4" layer & the only place where it gets dirty to the bottom is some of the potty spots. It only takes around 3/4 a bale to fill the cage, so there's some left for spot cleaning if wanted. But we've been doing a half clean on the first weekend (mainly a good clean out of potty spots), then the second weekend is a full clean out. Spot cleaning maybe a couple times in the week, but I don't think we did even that last week before this weekend's full clean. No issues with the pigs getting messy or the cage being smelly until it's being cleaned out. And it takes me less than an hour to do a full clean too!

The barrel can just manage one full clean out if it starts empty, but it's also nice for spot cleaning as needed - the only issue there is that it gets mold in it if it sits for the week, but the lid keeps it in. So far the compost pile is managing okay, will have to wait and see if it can continue to keep up!

They do have an entire shelf in the fridge for their veggies right now, but we're replacing the garage freezer with a 50/50 fridge/freezer this week so we can move their food to that. They've been really enjoying their varied diet too! So far they like red & green leaf lettuce, romaine lettuce, arugula, mustard greens, watercress, spring mix, carrots, parsnips, tomatoes, snap peas, green beans, celery, corn, bell peppers, cucumber, apples, watermelon, basil, dill, parsley, mint, as well as (from the yard) grass, raspberry leaf, dandelion leaf, violet leaf, plantain, prickly lettuce, and clover flowers.

Poor Spring had a really hard time settling tonight, despite (or because of?) a dose of trazadone. He's done better with it in the past, so unsure what's up with that. Jack did get him to stay put for some time with him at least.