I hate that I got out of the habit of writing this blog. Time to get back to it! I have so many ideas of things I want to share.
Although we are still pretty locked down with the pandemic, I did travel a couple of weeks ago. Our son needed help moving out of his dorm room, so we got to spend a week in the Portland, OR area, beautiful!
Cats, Hector, Gliders, and the Dragon stay at the house when we travel, and I have someone come in once a day to feed them and visit. Cali goes somewhere else to stay. I don’t think she would do well being at the house without someone living here.
I have a couple of friends that will take Cali into their homes, so I never worry about leaving her. I think she has only been to a kennel once or twice in her life. Nothing wrong with kennels, they just aren’t the best fit for her. She has so much anxiety, and the commotion of the other dogs, loud noises, being caged, it just really throws her off.
Leaving the pets was a little nerve-wracking. I hadn’t left the gliders before so I had to figure out what would work for them and the pet sitter who happened to be my daughter this time. I wanted to make sure they had everything they needed, but that it would be simple and easy for my daughter.
The system I came up with for the gliders worked so well, that I’m doing it for myself now. Basically, I’m making up big batches of their blended diet, and freezing it in serving size containers along with their fruits and veggies. To change things up, I add different fruits and veggies to some of the containers, and some containers I mix the blended diet with the fruits and veggies, and others are divided containers. The containers are just flat storage containers that the gliders can also use as a food dish.
After I finish my own dinner, I take out one of the frozen containers and put it in the glider cage. By the time they are ready to eat it has defrosted, but it stays fresh. They also always have pellets in their cage, and of course fresh water. Sometimes things get changed up, I’ll add some yogurt to their staple foods once in a while, or a bit of egg. It’s easy to do when I’m home, but not necessary for the week I traveled.
One thing I learned while prepping the sugar glider foods before the trip was that I had been really over feeding them! I used to think they don’t eat much, and they don’t, they are tiny! But I went back and looked at the portions for their diet. They are supposed to get 1 tablespoon of their blended mix, one tablespoon each of fruit and veggies. I think I was probably feeding them close to double that, what a waste! Now I feed them about 5 tablespoons blended for the four of them along with the fruits and veggies. The best part is now I can actually tell when they are eating well. Some nights they definitely eat more than other nights, and now I have a better feel for things, and my food batches stretch out more.
The bottom line is that my daughter had easy directions for taking care of all the pets, and the pets were all happy and healthy while I was gone.
