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My dad and I ended up in a bit of an argument last night. He had given extra Wellness treats out for Bandit last night, apparently because the bag was empty and he wanted to empty it, without asking me if it was ok first. I asked him please not to give out extra treats just because some were smaller, and he got mad and decided to hell with giving Bandit dinner time treats. I'd rather him not get dinner treats anyways, so I'm kind of happy, though I didn't want to get Bandit off the dinner treats this way. During the time Dinner is being prepped (as he tends to sit there and beg the whole time someone is cooking and hope something gets dropped...) until we are done eating and leftovers are put away (he'd go into my room, but then he scratches at the door and my dad doesn't like it when he does that). So, Bandit is no longer going to get the dinner time treats. He's now only going to get one or two treats a day, to be distributed by me. One of them will be to get him in his crate. That's probably the only one he's going to get per day. I'm glad treats become actual treats for Bandit, and not an addition to his meal. At least now, I don't have to worry about someone "accidentally" giving Bandit the wrong treat, given that my dad wants Country and Jonny to continue getting the crappy Ol' Roy treats because they are easier to break apart than the Wellness ones...

Also, Bandit is on Wellness Core food. His fur is much softer and shinier. biggrin

Charcoal is getting combination feeding so I can better afford to have both her and Bandit on Wellness food. She gets dry food (with water added) in the morning and canned in the evening. When I can better afford to, I'm going to get Charcoal back on all canned food. smile Charcoal absolutely LOVES her cat tree. She's almost always on it somewhere. She plays in it constantly too. biggrin She loves laying on the top platform with her tail dangling off, and occasionally a leg or two. whee I also got a few new toys for her. One that hangs off the doorknob. She loves it. The great thing about this one is that it's attached by a wire instead of elastic, so she can't chew through it. biggrin One was a new laser pointer since she loves chasing the dots and my old one broke. I'll have to record a video of her chasing it and post the video. whee The other is a toy on a string with a pole I can use to interact with her since my old ones broke (she plays rough and pulled the toy off the elastic lol). biggrin

Squirtle's shell is starting to look better. It's not 100% better yet, but it's a little less bumpy. biggrin I'm still planning on upgrading his tank to a 75 gallon one sometime when I can afford to. biggrin I also was looking at lights that have both UVA and UVB today, and the only one that I liked that had all the different kinds of light necessary (there were only two different ones at the store) for Squirtle, and it was expensive. I might pick that up and a good fixture for it next payday. I looked on craigslist today, just a little while ago, after starting this section of the post, for a 75 gallon tank, and found a nice bundle. It is a 75 gallon tank and comes with white sand, a glass canopy, and a Aquaclear 110 filter for $125. If it's still available my next payday, I might get that instead. biggrin I'd have to go almost an hour away to get it, but for Squirtle, it would be worth it. It depends on the size of my paycheck. If I can, I might get both and a bigger floating dock. And probably a stand for it the following paycheck, not sure that my desk would be able to hold the weight of the tank after it's filled with water. smile

Edit: I just e-mailed the seller of the tank. Hopefully I'll get a response. I also hope he/she will be willing to hold onto it for me if I decide to buy it until payday, and my first day off after my payday. ^_^ I also inquired about a stand for it and how much they would want for it if they do have one. biggrin

Another Edit: Sadly the tank bundle has been sold. sad I probably won't be getting a bigger tank this time. sad I'll definitely get the lightbulb and light fixture for Squirtle, though. biggrin

Updates on some of the other animals:

Tigger, Patches and Boots are now on Wellness Core dry food (getting water added). biggrin

Tigger and Patches are now getting soft claws. Just got done putting them on Tigger's front claws. We're using what I didn't use on Charcoal. Tigger is going to need a cat muzzle for doing his claws. He was biting pretty badly (thankfully he didn't break skin or scratch or anything, mom did a pretty good job of pulling his head away every time he tried to bite me as well as herself (she was holding him). He doesn't care about his claws being trimmed, but boy did he HATE the soft claws being put on him. He also hissed for the very first time while putting them on him. Once his 5-10 minute observation period is done, we'll be putting them on Patches' front claws. Hopefully Patches won't be as bad. I'll post an update after I finish with him on how his went. Tomorrow, we'll be picking up more soft claws (as there will only be two left after doing Patches' front claws) and a cat muzzle. Then either tomorrow or Monday, we'll be doing their back claws. They are getting them because Tigger loves using his claws with just about everything. He jumps up onto your lap and his claws are extended, which doesn't feel good on us obviously. He loves climbing us. He loves using his claws. We're hoping putting the soft claws on his claws for a while will help him slow down on his claw usage. We're putting them on Patches too so he won't hurt Tigger during their play, as Tigger obviously wouldn't be able to tell Patches that he's going too far very easily.

Ace (my BN Pleco) has grown a lot. He/she has about doubled in size. His/her bristles are developing now. biggrin Patriot (my Betta) is very happy too, and he has grown as well. He seems to assume that I'm going to feed him when I go to watch him and Ace. He goes to the corner of the tank I feed him at and starts wiggling for food lol. It's cute! whee He eventually figures out that I'm not going to feed him during that visit (though he gets excited when I do feed him and darts to his food and scarfs it down lol. He also chases Ace's algae wafers to the bottom of the tank lol) and starts swimming around. ^_^ I'll take some pictures of them and post them sometime soon. biggrin

I can't wait to get the bulb too. biggrin I was looking forward to the bigger tank, too. I'll eventually manage to get one. I'd rather go with one for a cheaper price from craigslist, but will go with others if I have to. The store I bought the fish from (a really good fish place that really cares about their fish. biggrin ) tends to have nice sales on their tanks, and I know they carry 75 gallon ones, I'll probably get one from them eventually if I don't manage to get lucky with Craigslist.

Yep. I do keep her claws trimmed. She stays fairly relaxed now when I trim them and I am starting to be able to do that by myself with little to no help. biggrin She is still super hyper, but she has at least mellowed out a little. at least enough that she isn't scratching me. When she does decide she's gonna be in a mood and not want anything to do with me, she smacks me with her claws still retracted, where as she used to have her claws extended and scratch me, sometimes quite badly. After a while with the soft claws on, she started to figure out her claws didn't do anything to me, and I guess she gave up after a while (she started off trying to scratch me with her claws extended, and eventually stopped extending them when she noticed they weren't doing anything to me and simply smacked me lol). biggrin I want to take pictures of the cute ways she lays on her cat tree and post them. biggrin

We have also been keeping Tigger's and Patches' claws trimmed. Tigger still finds ways to scratch us, considering he does everything just about with his claws extended. lol He's very mischievous and gets into trouble all the time. Putting the soft claws on Patches went without much incident. He squirmed a lot at first and nipped a little bit, but he eventually figured out that the process wasn't hurting him and relaxed. biggrin We're hoping it'll help Tigger figure out that using his claws for just about everything isn't necessary. Hopefully we'll eventually be able to not have to put them on any more after a while of them being on. smile They both will be getting the soft claws on their back claws either later today or tomorrow, since we need to pick up more.

The fish are doing really well. biggrin I want to measure Ace when he/she is attached to the side of the tank and see exactly how big he/she is so far. Hopefully he/she will stay still long enough. lol