Dogs

As you all know, I am a housesitter. I stay overnight at my friends' houses whenever they go away. Usually I do this if they are dog owners. Now, as you also know, I am a cat person. I love dogs, but due to my lifestyle, I can't take care of one. I work about a half hour from home, and am often gone for twelve hours at a time. Most of the friends for whom I housesit are a five minute drive from work, or less, enabling me to let them out according to their needs.

Now, with the five minute commute, one might think, "Lovely! You can sleep in and hit the snooze button several times, right?" WRONG. Dogs operate on their own schedule. They don't care whether they wake you up at 6:30 am or 2:30 am. Most of the time the dogs I watch will let me sleep for fifteen extra minutes when I tell them to go away for a bit. But when dogs gotta go, they gotta go.

Tonight I let the dogs out after their supper, and I made some observations:

1. They insist on peeing in the exact same spot. Where one goes, the other must go as well.

2. Why is it that dogs insist on turning two or three times before laying down?

3. You know the movie 101 Dalmatians? That part about the "Twilight Bark"? So true. When one dog in the neighborhood barks, even if it's twenty houses down, all of the dogs in the neighborhood join in.

Now to complicate matters, there is a cat living in this house as well. He is clearly the alpha male, and is not afraid to swipe either pup if he gets pissed off. After all, this is his house. The dogs are so afraid of him, they will freeze in their tracks when they come in from the backyard and they see him in the kitchen. I never saw a dog fear a cat before. It's really remarkable how terrified these big dogs (they're Labs) are of this feline.

And what is it with dogs and shoes?!?!?! One of the dogs likes to hold shoes in its mouth. Fortunately, they don't get chewed up--well, actually, I lost a wee part of my heel the other day, to my good pair of brown shoes. Plus side? I took advantage of the BOGO sale at Payless and got some new ones. But I digress.

Oh, and the shoe-loving dog also loves to drag clothes around the house. The other day I stacked my laundry way up high, high enough that I felt that she couldn't get a hold of it. The next morning, when I woke up--clean laundry, all over the first floor of the house.

Now, I get annoyed when my kitties fall asleep on my laundry, but I'd take their fur all over my clean sweaters over seeing my laundry dragged across the living room any day.

I'm here till Saturday afternoon. It's going to feel really weird sleeping in my own house after being away for so long. But at the same time, it's gonna feel soooo good.

P.S. For those of you who have asked why I don't have my cats here, it's pretty simple. They don't get along with dogs. Plus, the alpha male cat is known as the neighborhood bully, even though he's pretty sweet with me. With the two dogs and the cat here, I'd have to keep my girls cooped up in one of the bedrooms all day long. It really wouldn't be fair for me to do that to them. Fortunately I get to go home and spend time with them each day for a couple of hours, so they don't feel neglected.