The Buddy update.

I haven't written about the dog-thing in a while now and I do get questions (Carl P, I'm looking at you) so here's an update.

Buddy remains healthy and happy in the main. He still has that itchy skin condition and nothing I've come up with seems to make it much better. I have figured out, I think, that giving him a weekly bath was probably not doing much to alleviate the situation and maybe even making it worse by drying out his skin. So we skipped the bath this week and we're now 13 days out from the last one. I'm not so sure this helps with the itching, but it does make it harder for him to make things worse with constant chewing at himself; all that hair do get in the way. On the other hand, his distinctive doggy smell is now a tad more evident and we will go back to the tub tomorrow morning.he also needs some grooming, but then again, so I. We'll get to that sooner or later.

Buddy has also, for reasons I cannot figure out, returned to a higher level of separation anxiety than he had shown recently. I fear that what he's done is figure things out. He now recognizes so much of what I do, that any step which seems to indicate I'm about to leave the house alerts him immediately and he goes into action, tail-wagging in full force and excitement mode in full force.

It's still not clear to me whether, if I just leave him here, the barking and scratching at the door fades away after some reasonable period of time. That's probably the case, because I haven't come back after an hour to trip away of late and found him doing any of that protesting; he's usually inside at the far side of the living room and running toward the door when I open it. I assume the best but I'm still very reluctant to leave alone at night time when more residents are home in surrounding apartments. The last thing I need is neighbors complaining about him.

He still continues to make me laugh out loud at least two or three times a day and is therefore a priceless companion.

Editorial Note: This post was also done with the Dragon software and my constant repeating of his name in an effort to train the software to recognize it ( which is not going very well), has driven the poor guy a bit crazy trying to figure out what exactly it is that I'm asking of him. Fortunately we are hard upon dinnertime and that will solve all of his problems for the immediate future.