Capybara Appreciation Day is coming up on July 10. The day honors Caplin Rous, but this year I’m sharing some photos of his little brother, Dobby.

Even when Dobby was a baby, his destructive side was apparent. Here he is in my bedroom, looking so innocent. A couple minutes later I caught him chewing the fringe off that carpet.

Dobby had his own corner of the kitchen. He had a cat-sized basket and an IKEA rat with the feet chewed off. He had bowls of potatoes, guinea pig pellets, and hay, but he’s waiting for his precious bowl of milk.

Even tiny Dobby had plenty of attitude. Sometimes I think this photo was a warning, or maybe just a foreboding.

The current wisdom is to keep your pets in pairs: cats, guinea pigs and capybaras, too. I’ve had plenty of experience with pets and I can honestly say that I have developed the best rapport with single pets, and Dobby was no exception. He had plenty of co-pets but the hens were his favorites.The following photo caught him very pouffy about sharing a treat with his friends.

His favorite hen was Conchita. Here they are in the front yard sharing a piece of corn. She is featured in Prince Dobalob Builds a Zeppelin.

The next photo shows him sitting in the aviary doorway so I couldn’t close the gate. He did this to ensure that all the hens had time to come out into the yard.

This is how we remember Dobby. He’s at the front door and has just tossed my boots down the stairs. There were always custom nibble marks around the top edge of my boots.

I wasted time by putting up little garden fences to keep him from eating my plants. The bird cages were more effective.

He was surprisingly cooperative for photo shoots- as long as they didn’t involve hats! He’s clearly posing with his butterfly wings on.

Look at this handsome guy! This is for all of those fools out there who describe capybara eyes as soulless.

Here is that handsome guy, caught red-handed taking the lid off the bin. Looks like there’s a bag of cracked corn in there.

He loved his blankets and sometimes he dragged them off his bed. Most of them came from Goodwill Outlet, a shopping adventure for the hardiest of souls.

He had a tiny wooden doorknob so he could pull open the kitchen door by himself (we didn’t latch it.) The wood would eventually crack and crumble. I treasure my jar full of dead crusty doorknobs.

Dobby wrote a lot of the blogposts back then. Here he is with his laptop. It’s still around here somewhere, too.

He’s showing off his morrillo here. That’s the black greasy gland on top of his nose. This photo was taken before he ate that shrub.

I’m still coming up with new Dobby videos.

I was putting his dirty blankets in the laundry bin behind him when he pulled them back out and decided to take a nap then and there. Dobby knows best!

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This post was brought to you by Stacy’s Funny Farm, a non-profit pet sanctuary and former home of Dobby the capybara. We hope you will be inspired to make a donation. We especially appreciate monthly giving- the PayPal portal offers that option. If you want to help but are short on cash, head over to Dobby’s YouTube channel. (Did you watch the World Cup video here?) We’re monetized and those ads pay out nicely, so please watch, share, and subscribe.

Stacy’s Funny Farm is a §501(c)(3) non-profit organization.

stacysfunnyfarm@gmail.com     EIN 47-1397412