Dog Systems

Cody is the best dog in the world, but he is not inherently well-organized. Left to his own devices, he would strew toy innards throughout the home, sleep till noon and eat all his food at once. My boyfriend Chris and I need to do all of Cody's organizing tasks for him, and this is how we do it:

Hello? Yes, this is Dog. 

Weekday Walks: Chris walks Cody in the morning because his commute requires less exact timing than mine does. We pay a dog walker to walk him in the afternoon, and I walk him right before bed, which is nice for me because it requires a certain amount of consistency in getting ready for bed at a decent hour.

Weekend Walks: Chris still generally walks Cody in the morning and I still generally walk him at bedtime on weekends, and we split the afternoons depending on weekend schedules.

Food: Cody has two meals a day. Chris feeds him breakfast after the morning walk, and on weekdays I feed him dinner as soon as I get home from work. On the weekends, he gets dinner after his afternoon walk by whoever has just walked him.

Toys: Because Cody does not clean up after himself, I try to limit his toys to three in circulation at a given time. There is generally one hard gnaw-y toy, one totally eviscerated soft toy, one still recognizable stuffed toy looking like road kill around the apartment. The recognizable toy evolves into the eviscerated one and the cycle of toy decay continues.

Vet scheduling, monthly heartworm and flea and tick prevention: Cody has his own Google calendar that Chris and I both write into. This helps us keep track of when he has had vet check-ups, who has paid the dogwalker this week, when Cody last had a bath, etc.

Nickname: Cody is also known as Sir Dogface Von Excellence.