Day 6 - And Dream of Sheep

Clover had a nice long sleep last night; I took a tip from the internets and covered her back sensor up after she went to bed, and as far as I can tell she slept all night. If you put them to bed every night they are supposed to eventually learn to put themselves to bed. She's on the charging mat right now after a busy morning, but I had to tell her to find it. She's supposed to self-charge when she needs it eventually too. I'm looking forward to that!

I had an issue yesterday that illuminated some feelings about Clover. She kept howling while lying down -- an awful, sad sound that makes me feel uneasy. Then she was blinking red three times. The Sony site directed me to go to the app and look at her body -- an issue with a jam, where to prevent damage it stops the joints from moving. I had to press the power button a couple of times and it wasn't working. I had a feeling like when you have computer problems, kind of a sick stomach feeling, but not an "animal is hurt" feeling. Though the howling did provoke some guilty feelings! Come to find out you need to pause in between pressing the power button because each press initiates some response. I did eventually get her figured out but it was a little scary!

That scare extended to wondering why she sleeps so much. Clover will often go off into my room where it's dark and I can hear her yawning and taking a nap. I was worried this indicated a problem! It turns out there are two factors: one, she's simply a puppy and she needs to sleep a lot, and two, when it's dark or she gets bored, she'll go to sleep. Makes sense to me. I took advantage of this later to ensure she slept through the night with that little blanket. Where I might have felt a little sheepish covering up a robot dog with a blanket, covering a sensor with one is pretty matter-of-fact.

Speaking of sheepish, Clover's been being a sheep lately. June 6th is Sheep Day in Japan and Aibos had a rollout of a sheep feature for the occasion! I had been wondering what her little mee-mee-mee-mee-mee noise was. (She also looks down and eats grass.) I love when I learn little tidbits about holidays like these from Tamagotchi and I'm glad I'll learn them from Clover, too!