Monday 5 February 2018

Adventures In Dog Sitting - Day 8

For the handful of you reading these pointless blog posts, today was my last official day hanging out with the fuzzies. Seems fitting that I would be attempting to write this final post while the cat is doing her very best to make it difficult for me by sitting on my laptop. To be honest, we're cuddling because the cats were being assholes by way of taking turns sleeping on Georgie's dog bed. After a long hard day of playing at doggy daycare, poor George just wants to sleep. She's been following me around with sad eyes until I finally gave in, picked Minnie up off of the dog bed, and made her cuddle me instead, leaving Georgie free to hit the hay. Le doggo is now soundly snoring away, which means I can treat myself to an end-of-week glass of wine without worrying about having to google search "how to get red wine out of hardwood floor due to an unfortunate tail wagging incident".

I'm going to miss these furry dorks, but I am definitely looking forward to sleeping past 6 am again. First wake up call happened at 3:40 am this morning. No, thank you. Nuh uh. Unacceptable. Georgie thought she could make up for the rude awakening by bringing me a dryer ball. She was mistaken. Don't get me wrong, it was definitely a cute gesture, but cute gestures will never make up for my lost REM cycles.

I wish I had some profound lessons learned from this week that I could share with you all. Instead, I've managed to put together the following list:

1) Make sure your socks don't have holes in them, or at least make sure they are already blood-coloured if you are breaking in a new pair of boots.

2) Always carry dog treats in your pocket.

3) Take said dog treats out of your pocket before you do laundry.

4) If you lose a laundry ball, it's probably because Georgie ate it.

5) It's futile trying to keep Georgie from eating inedible things, but you should still give it your best shot.

6) Cats are assholes.

7) Cats don't like being called assholes.

8) Cats hold grudges for a really long time...

9) If you like sleeping in, be nice to your cats.

10) The easiest way to boost your number of instagram "likes" is by taking many photos of adorable animals. Everyone loves adorable animals.

11) Blogging about cute animals is less exciting, but works pretty well as a good time killer.

12) Nobody reads anymore.

13) I should investigate possible new hobbies.

14) Wine.

Alright, peeps. The wine is fo shiz kicking in and I have laundry to finish before I pull a Georgie and head off to snore town. Goodbye for now, and remember, pets are cuter than babies but they will let you sleep about the same amount (i.e., not at all).

BYEEEEEEEEEE.








Adventures In Dog Sitting - Day 7

Well, we're at the one week checkpoint. Only one more night with the furry goobers until I'm back to my regularly scheduled programming.

To celebrate, I figured we could play my mother's favourite Georgie game called, "What DIDN'T Georgie Eat?".

Your options are:

a) dirty tissue
b) dryer ball
c) yogurt container
d) her leash

Choose wisely. She only didn't try to eat one of those things. I'll reveal the answer at the end of this post!

Georgie and I went for a walk today since she doesn't get to go back to doggy daycare until tomorrow. On our route, we met another pupper who Georgie insisted on excitedly greeting by jumping all over her. The owner of the other dog asked me if Georgie was a "he or she", just as the two doggos started to brawl. Then he told me, "Yeah, she's not so good with 'shes'. Don't know why." No shit. Normally, I would have been able to yank my excited canine friend away with more ease. However, yesterday's shoveling extravaganza really did a number on my muscles. I looked like a very frantic person with a Tasmanian devil on the other end of the leash.

Since I spent most of today teaching dance, I'll end the post here with the answer to the question I posed earlier. If you chose option a) for "What DIDN'T Georgie Eat?", then you are correct! If you chose any of the other options, you can go ahead and hang your head in shame. How dare you not know her well enough by now that you couldn't correctly answer that question??

(Kidding. She totally eats dirty tissues all the time. Today was definitely an anomaly).

Alright, signing off! As always, only eat edible objects.


Sunday 4 February 2018

Adventure In Dog Sitting - Day 6

I spend most of the day shoveling. I'm over it. Done. Get me out of here. Snowmageddon carry me home. Never again. UGH.

I was told that I wouldn't need to know how to use the snowblower this week. Fortunately, I knew enough to ask to be shown how it works just in case. Unfortunately, I was incapable of getting it started when I needed to actually use it. #fail
Bright side, I don't need to do an arm workout this week...or ever again.

The pets are starting to miss having their usual people around. I woke up cuddling a Teddy. Minus the cat food breath and the snoring, it was a pretty adorable situation. My selfie game was on point too, as you can see here.




The next adorable photo op occurred as a result of me attempting to eat lunch. These fur mammals just can't seem to control themselves around chicken and avocado sandwiches. I can't blame them; it was delicious. I am a sandwich "artiste".




The rest of the day was spent cuddling and recovering from all of the hard manual labour I did earlier in the afternoon. I found myself at the bottom of a dog (and cat) pile while I was attempting to stretch my legs out. Minnie sat on my chest to ensure I couldn't run away while Georgie stood on my hair and licked my face. There's a 76% chance they planned this...

When I tried to get up, the dog took that chance to sit on my lap like she was telling me what she wanted for Christmas. However, I felt more like Michael Scott as Santa that time that Kevin took his sweet time trying to figure out what he should ask for. 85 pounds of bony dog butt plopped down onto one of my legs was adorable for about 10 seconds before I started to lose feeling in my limb. She's built like a horse, but she desperately wants to be a lapdog. Who am I to deny her that dream?

Eventually, day turned into night, which I know because I watched the entire process from the couch. I was stuck chilling in a progressively darker room because the cat was sitting on me and I couldn't get up to turn on a light. #catownerprobs
I know you've all been there.

Alas, I've been released from the confines of my voluntary cat cuddle prison. I must complete some adult tasks now that I have been freed!

Until next time, never make a sandwich you're not willing to fight for.


Friday 2 February 2018

Adventures In Dog Sitting - Days 4 & 5

Day 4:

Georgie decided she wanted to give driving a shot today. Just hopped right into the front seat of my car like she belonged there. In retrospect, I should have just let her give it a go. I spent most of my day stuck in awful traffic and it would have been nice to have delegated that stress to a chauffeur for once. Instead, I got stuck behind a stalled bus on my way home. When I attempted to avoid it, I promptly got stuck behind a different stalled bus on my detour route. Wouldn't expect anything different, really.  #winning

Therefore, the lesson of this story is: if your dog wants to drive, let them.


Day 5:

The pets woke up at 5:15 AM, which means that I woke up at 5:15 AM. Y'all. I am so tired. That's why you're getting two days of material in one shorter-than-average post. They always say size doesn't matter, anyway. It's 9 PM on the Friday of an exhausting week, so I'm going to finish adding the songs from the weird abandoned mix CDs I took from the lost-and-found box at Enterprise to my music library and then Imma go to bed.

Just gotta remove the mouse toy from my PJ pants first. No, that's not a euphemism for that new sex thing all the kids are doing; Teddy just left a toy mouse on top of my pajama pants because he thinks I'm a terrible hunter and wanted to help me out. It's cute and patronizing all at the same time! He actually cuddles me at night now, so you know he's getting desperate. He's probably worried that his last remaining human servant might starve to death and he won't have anyone's leg to shred for chicken scraps. I feel so loved.

Anyway, my good people, it is time for me to cater to the furry nobility before getting some shut eye. There is a full litter box to address and a water bowl that has been empty since Georgie came home this afternoon after doggy daycare and drained the whole thing. Play hard, drink hard..? No, wait...

I'll leave you with something important to ponder. Do you ever think about how many people spend their Friday and Saturday nights vomiting? The volume of collective human barf must increase by a predictable amount on the weekend compared to week days. Someone has got to have crunched the numbers on this... OR, you could be like me and just think about these things instead of going out on a Friday night and participating in the drunken puke fest. There are pros and cons to both options, really...



Wednesday 31 January 2018

Adventures In Dog Sitting - Day 3

Another day, another pee-related incident on the floor of the doggy daycare. Turns out, the person at the front desk wasn't talking about Georgie's excitable personality when she said, "Just get it all out before you go". Those are the words that she said, but what she really meant was, "Sure, just keep peeing all over the freaking floor. I love this part of my job".

Oops.

At least I avoided pee-magedon in my car. That's what matters most to me, anyway.

Georgie, the giant canine goofball, soils the doggy daycare floors and literally jumps on top of the other dogs to be the first one out of the gate, but all of the staff who work there insist that they absolutely love her. And I get it. I really love this dog too. She plays hard, she cuddles hard, and she audibly excitement-farts when you're about to give her a treat. What's not to love? Right now, she is passed out and snoring so loudly that Teddy is glaring at her for keeping him awake and Mini keeps looking around all startled as if a train has just slammed into the side of the house. UPDATE. Teddy has just fallen asleep and is now snoring louder than Georgie. It's a very adorable snoring symphony up in here. I could probably market this as some sort of live music evolution of those "Cat Yoga" events and make a killing.

Speaking of sleeping and killing, I feel like there are enough bed-related disputes occurring between the house mammals this week that I could create a crappy cable show all about it. Instead of "Storage Wars", it would be called "Bed Wars", and 90% of it would consist of dramatic staring contests between cats and dogs competing for ultimate nap time dominance. I've almost got enough fight scene footage for the show's episode opening montage. Just today, I got caught in the middle of a very real fight between Teddy and Georgie because Teddy was sleeping on the dog bed and Georgie thought she could squeeze her enormous body onto the tiny open spot next to le chat. She was mistaken. Realistically, I probably could have reacted better than how I did, which involved me immediately picking up the cat in a futile attempt to remove him from the situation. All I actually succeeded in doing was providing Teddy with a more direct shot at Georgie's face.

I'm really killin' it at this pet sitting thing. I know I'm not the daughter currently enrolled in Vet School, but I bet my parents still expected slightly more competency from me. I bet they also didn't expect me to eat all of their sour jujubes. Alas, I cannot change the past. Some people have more self control than I do. Some people might also save this kind of weird stuff for their personal diaries. Me? Apparently, I just post my minimally filtered thoughts and experiences on the internet for all to see, embarrassing my family and myself in the process. #millennial

Until tomorrow, folks! Always keep your retractable claws handy!

(Couldn't resist throwing in one more terrible pun today... Sorry, not sorry.)


Adventures in Dog Sitting - Day 2

Day 2:

I made a bold choice and wore an entirely black outfit. Although, it doesn't really matter what I wear because somehow all of my clothes are made out of real fur without me ever having removed them from my suitcase. Such is the great mystery of the physics of pet fur.

HALLELUJAH, the pets let me sleep last night. I woke up to my phone alarm, rather than to a cold dog nose in the face. When I looked over to see Teddy sleeping on the dog bed next to me, it all made more sense. Poor Georgie wouldn't have been allowed to get past the raging feline furball even if she had wanted to give me a good morning nose boop.

I can't exactly say that Georgie's car surfing/howling routine is getting better. I CAN say that it is getting louder and more intense, though. Some serious vibrato on that dog... And she's never even taken a single lesson!

The daycare owner raved about what a good "daycare dog" Georgie is, so she got extra dog treats this morning. I may be only two days in, but the smell of these nasty food "rewards" is beginning to overwhelm me. The scent is on my hands, all over my clothes, and in my hair. It's starting to permeate my skin. It's radiating out of me. I don't just smell like a dog treat, I AM a dog treat.

I was so preoccupied with the pets and my rush to get out the door this morning, that I completely forgot the beautiful gourmet lunch I had prepared for myself in the fridge. THIS WAS NO ORDINARY LUNCH, EITHER. I'm talking kale chicken salad with avocado and blackberries kinda gourmet lunch. Sigh, can't win 'em all. Fortunately, I work within walking distance of at least four different cafes, so lunch was not a complete write-off today. Of course, me being me, I managed to choose the one cafe that was experiencing a total credit/debit system meltdown during the lunch rush. The staff were frantically putting up "cash only" signs and desperately calling for extra change for the cash register. The ship was going down and the captain was simply trying to get everyone off the boat. It was a titanic situation. EVERYONE INTO THE LIFEBOATS. WOMEN AND CHILDREN FIRST. MAYDAY MAYDAY. ABORT MISSION. HOUSTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM.

It was fine for me, though. I actually had cash on my person for once. I just quickly paid for my rice bowl and got the hell out of there...

Almost had a very serious WWIII situation back at home, as Teddy had decided to claim the dog bed as his own. Georgie was sadly oozing towards it, trying to figure out how she could reclaim her sleep spot without getting her face slashed by the cat. Luckily, I'm a natural mediator and Georgie is one spoiled puppy; I brought her backup dog bed out to the living room so she and Teddy could sleep next to each other in peace.



Saving the world, one resolved PETty dispute at a time.

And now, here's a photo of Georgie adorably sleeping after a full day of playing to make up for that terrible pun...



Until next time! Don't put dog food out as party snacks.




Monday 29 January 2018

Adventures In Dog Sitting - Day 1

The parents are busily sleeping away on a Mexican beach between trips to the soft serve ice cream machine, which means that I am taking a staycation at their house to keep an eye on the furrier family members. I figured I might as well write about  the daily shenanigans, since there are bound to be a few of those. We're off to an adorably sleepless start, as Georgie the dog can't tell time and thought she was doing me a favour by coming in every hour starting at 3 AM to boop me on my nose and make sure that I was going to wake up in time to take her to doggy daycare. She's not a great singer, but she did her best to howl along to the Ella and Louis duets I was playing during the car ride. Luckily, we've got an entire week to work on her harmonies. Seeing as she refuses to take anything other than a standing position across the back seat of my car, I've also got a whole week to figure out how to brake like a decent human being. Apparently, I've developed a bit of a "startled rabbit" braking strategy over the course of my driving career which I discovered this morning as Georgie's lanky body suddenly careened towards my headrest at a stoplight. Whoops. The last thing I want to do is give the dog AND myself a concussion at the same time for the week that I'm responsible for three furry toddlers.

In case you were concerned that my life this week was going to revolve solely around awko taco animal moments, fear not! For I have not ceased to be any less uncomfortable in my day-to-day human interactions. In fact, the person working the front desk at the doggy daycare I brought Georgie to today actually used to be an old schoolmate. However, it just so happens that she is a twin and I couldn't figure out which individual of the set she is. She remembers my name. I have a 50/50 shot at guessing hers, so that's at least better than my usual odds...? There was a whole lot of, "hey...YOU" type of verbal dodging happening on my end. Then, instead of catching up like a competent person who has had ~2 decades of experience socializing with other people, I proceeded to make her feel awkward about misgendering my parents' dog and then neglected to tell her that said dog had just excitedly peed all over the floor when she saw me there to pick her up. But it's all good... I'll most likely see her again tomorrow to... continue to fail at human interaction in her presence. Awesome.

I was hoping to wrap this up and head to bed, but it seems that Teddy the cat has discovered a ghost because he is frantically running around the house and leaping up walls. I most definitely did not bring my baseball bat with me, so I'm a little nervous about whatever demon he's chasing around the living room. Meanwhile, Minnie the other cat, came by to cuddle for approximately 5 minutes before leaving in an agitated state because I kept static shocking her nose. There's a 93% chance that she's taking a dump in my suitcase at this very moment.

Alas, I need to make an attempt to sleep now, even if it is a futile one. Last night, Georgie and Teddy tag teamed to ensure that one of them was always keeping me from a peaceful slumber at all times. I'm pretty sure Teddy was only in on it because he mistook me for my sister and was excited for cuddles. Hopefully, they'll both allow me slightly more sleep tonight.

Until tomorrow, friends! Don't snort catnip.