4. Two months of keeping and caring for your dog, with a log

Warning. THIS IS THE BADGE. Two months, and a log of nine things kept throughout, including A WEEKLY BODY WEIGHT RECORD, which is eight or nine entries taken a week apart and cannot be produced at the end from memory. It is requirement 4 of ten and every other requirement is a conversation. Start it first. A reader who works through the requirements in order starts this clock after three discussions and finishes the badge two months from THERE rather than two months from now.

Warning. READ REQUIREMENTS 6 AND 8 BEFORE YOU START THIS LOG. The log asks for a feeding schedule, types and amounts of food, grooming and bathing schedules and veterinary care, and requirement 6 is where vaccination, parasite control, dental care and grooming are explained, while requirement 8 is a visit to a veterinary hospital or animal shelter. Both are numbered AFTER this one. The plan cannot draw an arrow backwards from 6 to 4 without closing a loop, so this notice is the arrow.

Warning. WORK DONE FOR THIS BADGE CANNOT COUNT TOWARDS ANOTHER ONE. A note above requirement 1 says so for the whole badge. It is worth knowing that the 2025 requirements book printed that rule as a parenthesis inside this requirement alone, and the current page has lifted it out and widened it to all ten. The badge it collides with most obviously is PETS, whose requirement 1 is four months of caring for a pet and which carries the same restriction from its own side, so two months of dog care and four months of pet care are two separate clocks, and one dog cannot run both.