For 10 days I took care of my niece’s dog so she could make a trip out of state. By the end of the first day I remembered why I don’t want pets: Because it means being responsible for another living creature, all the time.
As someone who’s lucky that her socks match* when she leaves the house, being unable to leave the house without first dealing with the dog was a challenge.
It was a lot like having a toddler around. Whenever I couldn’t see him or hear him I had an immediate reaction of, “Uh-oh – what’s he into now?”
As of the first day: the trash, the recycling bin and something on the counter.
Understand: I knew what I was getting into because I’ve dog-sat this pup before. Wrigley is a Rottweiler/black Lab mix, very big and very vocal. He woo-woos like a husky, especially when he wants to play or when he thinks it’s been too long since he had a walk. This is completely charming. I think my niece (his owner) should start a YouTube channel called “Shit My Dog Says.”
Speaking of which: This guy drops doggy bombs the size of corncobs. He’s also a walking pooper, i.e., he walks in a little tippy-toe squat as he’s defecating. The result is a fairy ring of feces, which I do have to admit makes it easier to find them all.
Yes, of course I picked them up. My favorite part of dog-sitting! Especially since he has turds like those of Drax in “Guardians of the Galaxy 2”:
Dog owners have an advantage: They can let the stuff linger in the yard until it hardens enough to be cleaned up (relatively) easily. Dog-sitters, on the other hand, are stuck retrieving poop so fresh it’s still coming out of the dog. Ick.
Seeing more summer
No place existed in the yard where I could tie him up, because he would almost certainly have rolled in the nice, cool dirt filling our raised beds full of veggies. I did put him a short lead when I needed to be outside, watering or otherwise working in the garden. But it didn’t let him move around much, so I felt bad leaving him on it for long.
Thus he needed at least one long walk per day, and preferably a bonus walk as well. It left him much less jittery and he woo-wooed a lot less. Truth be told, I should be grateful to Wrigley because he forced me out and into the Alaska summer.
A couple of deadlines plus the need to promote my new book had me way too deeply inside my own house and my own head. At times, needing to leave every day for at least 45 minutes had me fretting about time lost. Once we were walking, though, I felt the stress melt away.
I inhaled the wonderful fragrances of warm(ish) sun on vegetation, of just-opened lilacs, of a vaguely sweet smell that turned out to be the blossoms of the mountain ash tree. Never noticed this before, and it was intriguing.
And Wrigley? He was snuffle-snorting his way through underbrush, thrusting his nose into every pile of moose nuggets** and lunging at the occasional cat turd. Fortunately, the Halti he wore kept him from treating gravel patches as candy dishes. (Kitty Roca, anyone?)
So thanks, Wrigley, for reminding me to get out and enjoy the fresh air, even when it was raining. I’m glad I could help out your mom (kenneling would have cost $350), and I have to admit that you really are cute. It’s a good thing you are, or around the seventh or eighth day of dog-doo duty I would have been tempted to sell you for medical research.
Will I dog-sit for him again? Oh, probably. What is family for, anyway, if not to save you $350?
*I think they match if they both fit.
**Aka moose manure – and, luckily, it was always weathered. Glad we didn’t run into Alces alces in the midst of leaving his calling card, because the dog would have interfered with my jumping behind the closest tree (even a skinny tree is said to befuddle a moose’s threat perception).
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You are a wonderful person. No one who knows me would ever ask me to dog sit! It is not that I dislike dogs, I just dislike all the walking, pooping, picking up poop, getting into things. Plus, although I am not allergic to dogs, I have a sensitivity to them. I have rescued dogs in danger and ones being mistreated that always have fleas. So, I am not mean to dogs. I would be so stressed out having a dog around!
DF and I were both much less stressed when Wrigley went home. Not that he’s a bad dog; he’s just being a dog, which he can’t help but which we’re not used to experiencing. It’s been years since DF has had a dog and decades since I have.
I’ll do it again if she needs it, but it’s definitely a disruption. Then again, so is babysitting and I do that. Just a little service I provide.
I can handle babysitting and baby poop…lol.
It’s good to hear from you Donna, I was beginning to worry about ya. Dog sitting, huh? You are a good auntie! I got my fill of dog sitting a few years ago, I learned the hard way that it’s not for me.
Time got away from me in more ways than one. I was fretting about not having posted, which of course made me panic and wonder what I could write about, and then….Vicious circle.
Glad to be back. Thanks for your concern, and for your being such a consistent reader.
My daughter and son-in-law go on a one week vacation every year and leave me with their 2 pugs. Luckily, they aren’t big dogs so taking them for a walk means walking around our large front yard and watching them sniff everything. It does, however, mean they have to be taken out 4 times a day. I prefer to spend my morning sipping a cup of coffee, not spending 15 minutes watching dogs figure the choicest spot to relieve themselves. I’m always glad when the kids come home, but I do it for them every year because it saves them a lot of money.
I’ll stick with the cat we inherited when the neighbor died last year. He’s just here for the food.
Pet Sitting is a great way to earn some extra money. I’m glad when it’s time for them to go home too, though. LOL
Very true! Kenneling the dog would have cost her $35 per day, so I expect I could charge something along those lines if someone wanted me to care for a dog. But I’d never charge family, of course.
Love dogs! Had a pound hound until he was 17 years old. It does tie you down though. My parents are close and didn’t mind keeping an eye on him, but they are not much, much older and having them dog sit isn’t feasible.
I did take in a stray kitten while I had the dog. Never had cats before and I planned on rehoming the little guy. Well, the dog and cat became fast buddies and he stayed. When the dog died, cat was moping around, so I found another rescue kitten.
Not nearly as much fun as dogs, but not even close to the amount of work. No walks and contained poop pickup.
I love dogs, too. I just don’t want to be responsible for one.
Would love to have seen your kitten and dog playing or cuddling up together.
This gave me fond memories of my chocolate lab. 💟
~FrugalStrong (formerly Lake Livin’)
I always get to watch my daughter’s dog when they go away. The other year she had a large one that passed away. Now she got a puppy from the pound. She is a handful. It gets into and chews everything. I will sit down with my socks on and she comes up and in one swift pull, off comes my sock and then she runs with it. Go to open the closet for something and she grabs a shoe and takes off. Being 65, I can’t run after her like I could years ago. Every now and then I get the itch for a dog, but then think, two weeks a year is enough to have a dog. It is tiring! I can then send my grand-dog home and rest up!
we got a dog last fall, and it is SO much like having a toddler! Except she never tantrums and she always wants to cuddle. Oh and we can leave her in the kennel for the evening or the doggy daycare for a week at a time.
But the day to day – the need for exercise, the inability to feed herself, the eating things she shouldn’t (she ate a bee!) and then sometimes being sick from it. The having to deal with another mammal’s poop.
I guess she’s cheaper than having another baby, though.
Dogs are just like extended family! We have a corgi (Zoey) at home and my daughter has 2 (Madison & Brody). We took a trip to Ireland last year and left Zoey with her and her cousin dogs. She and her husband took a trip to Hawaii and we took Mads & Brody. After 2 weeks, I realized 3 dogs are just to much personality all together. I would do it again for a week but 2 was really long!
You taking care of the dog probably made her trip even better! First you saved her big bucks and second and most importantly she didn’t need to worry about him 🙂
Last time I took care of him it was for three weeks, so 10 days should have felt a lot easier. It didn’t. Again, that’s because we’re used to coming and going as we please and not having to think, “I need to (do whatever) so I have to think about what I’ll do with the dog.”
Still glad I could do it, though. The money she saved from not kenneling him is currently being applied to her house in the form of two coats of exterior paint.