Pets

Recently I had the opportunity to pet-sit, which brought back a buried memory.  I've only had one other pet-sitting experience, and it was a disaster.

To set the stage, you should know it was Minnesota, winter, and cold.  I was 20 years old, interning for a financial securities firm. My boss asked me to stay in her house while she and her husband went on vacation.  I didn't really know how to say no, so I agreed to do it.  The idea was that I'd watch her two dogs, and in return get to stay in her huge mansion and watch big-screen TV.

It sounded pretty good until I realized that the heat was set at about 60 degrees and one of her dogs was in heat. My boss had casually mentioned both these issues.  She gestured towards the heating system and said "I'm sure you know how that works, just click here and the heat will come on".  I didn't know how it worked.  And the demonstration did not help. And when she sort of mentioned the possibility of her large female dog going into heat, I had no idea what that meant either.  I had the vague impression that a dog in heat meant that she would shake or give off some sort of scent. I called my boss in a panic when the dog started to bleed.  She told me I had to put a padded girdle on the dog and regularly change the pad.  Oh, and make sure the other dog didn't get a chance to impregnate her.

Yeah, right.  Each of those dogs weighed 100 pounds.

In any case, I soon found myself at the pet store saying the word "bitch" and meaning an actual dog.  My face was bright red.  Equipped with the right supplies, I prepared to outfit the girl dog with her protective apparatus.  The dog took one look at me and ran.  I finally captured her and strapped it on.  Neither of us had our dignity intact after this exercise.  But, the leather straps were on and I had a few hours in which I could shiver under several blankets, remote control in hand.  The dog, meanwhile, was hiding in the back of her outdoor doghouse.

Time was up, and I knew I had to take on the dirty work.  I called for the dog to come out.  "Haha", laughed the dog (or at least that's how I interpreted her expression).  And this is how I came to find myself crawling on my hands and knees through the snow to find a dog in heat.  This was not my finest hour.  Evidently, the dog felt the same way.  A few hours later, I found the leather girdle chewed in half. It was off the dog.  My memory gets a little cloudy here, but I have a dim recollection of giving up and spending the next few days trying to stay warm while keeping the dogs apart from each other.

Surprisingly, she didn't get pregnant. Not surprisingly, I didn't pursue a career as a pet sitter.

My second pet-sitting experience, while marginally better, hasn't changed my mind.  I still have no future as a pet-sitter.  But, strangely, I kind of want a dog.