Oh, my ever lovin’ holy goat lord, pets are a pain in the ass.

I moved from a house with a yard to an apartment without a yard one week and two days ago. In one week and two days, my dog has refused to poop at the new place. She just won’t do it.

Yesterday morning, after dragging me around the neighborhood for over twenty minutes, thereby making me late for work, she refused to even pee. Mostly, she sniffs. Sometimes, she just stands there looking into the nothing. This morning, I took her out and she sat down as if we were having a lovely morning tea and biscuits.

I’ve taken her to the dog park every day since we moved and the first thing she does when we get there is what she should be doing at home. Sigh. At least she’s going somewhere, but really, can’t you do that at home? WTF, dog? It can’t be too comfortable pooping once every 24 hours.

The cat, on the other hand, has only eaten dog food and mostly refuses to come out from under the bed.

Yes, that’s right. The cat is eating dog food that the dog is refusing to eat since she’s all full of poop already. Sigh.

I have to put the cat food up so the dog won’t eat it, because she surely would. Cat food is her favorite treat. Some of you may be saying, of course, put the cat food way up high because cats can jump and dogs can’t. Well, this is a nice theory except for the fact that my cat is huge with short little legs. He’s built more like a wombat than a cat.

Don’t believe me? Alright then, here’s the exact same egg shape superimposed over my cat and the wombat. Note that the arcs match nearly perfectly:

The cat is sitting in that picture above and when he’s lying down, it looks much the same. He weighs nearly twenty pounds, and with his stumpy legs, he finds the force of gravity difficult to overcome. You try to launch twenty pounds of potatoes into the air with a rubber band slingshot and see how far they go. It takes all of his effort and concentration just to jump on the bed and sometimes he misses. The bed is as high as he can go.

I put the cat food on the desk with a chair next to it as a sort of ladder. He can jump on the chair and then onto the desk since there’s no way short/fat could jump directly on the desk. Well, what’s the problem then?

The problem is that he can’t remember where his food is. In addition to being short and fat, my cat is about as bright as a hamster. He’s very sweet, but just not smart at all. He doesn’t use his sense of smell to pinpoint the food. He just goes over to where the dog food is and eats that since it’s on the ground already. I’ll pick him up, put him on the desk, show him where the food is, then watch him jump right down and waddle back over to the dog food.

The cat eats the dog food. The dog eats the cat food. The dog refuses to poop anywhere but the dog park. The cat refuses to come out from under the bed unless I’m there. At least the cat is pooping where he’s supposed to unlike the dog.

I’m really hoping that eventually, they’ll sort their respective shit out, literal and figurative, and behave normally again. Fingers crossed.