Nine Days
At 2:30 in the morning, I am curled up on the couch, thinking that nine days, in this case, is a life time.
I've been given the option of sleeping in any one of four different beds in the house, not including the fold out bed in the office, but instead, I am scrunched in the space of half a couch, as one of the large dogs is taking up the other half. And I guess the fact that she is on my feet means she is taking more than her half.
In the light of the day I met them last week, Gracie and Lily seemed to be practically boring. Lily's life was described to be all that is typical of an old dog who wakes up to turn around and then go back to sleep. Gracie, I was told, could be "walked" without a leash... I would just need to spray the hose around the yard and Gracie would chase after it.
But then maybe there were hints that I should have picked up on, before 2:30 in the morning. Like "Lily scratches at the door when she needs to go out. We are still working on Gracie." And "Gracie is still a puppy... she likes to chew." Or "If for some reason Lily knocks over the baby gate, make sure all of the bedroom doors are closed."
Because it was about midnight that I heard the crash of a baby gate and the thundering of a stampede of dogs as they bounded up the stairs and directly into the one room I had forgotten to close off. I pulled back my covers and opened the door to coral them back down stairs, and they hopped into my bed and turned around to look at me in the same way that you might look at a waitress who has come to take your order but forgotten why she came.
Finally downstairs with the two monstrous dogs, I stepped over the baby gate, and right onto a wet spot on the rug.
At midnight, you have no desire to play detective and find out why the rug happens to be wet, so you pretend that it isn't.
I passed by the dry "puppy pad" of which it was said "The dogs may (hopefully) use the pad, or you can leave the door open so they can go out" and opened the back door, then turned around, climbed back over the baby gate and up to bed.
Finally they quit whining and breaking our their "I've been abandoned" bark, and I fell into a sweet sleep... until 2:30 when I heard the sound of the gate to the back yard rattling as if being attacked by a battering ram.
Back again, down the flight of stairs, over the baby gate, onto the wet spot in the carpet, out the door, around to the side gate, where the two battering rams were so excited to see me, wiggling their hind ends (they lack any sort of respectable tail), happy I had come out to play.
At 2:30 in the morning, the best solution I could come up with was to move the last remaining trash can (the other two I had moved earlier in the evening into the garage so that Beast 1 and 2 would not strew the contents over the entire back yard) in front of the gate and spend the rest of the night on the couch with them happily by my side.
The morning came just in time for me to discover another wet spot on the floor and a mostly chewed, signed baseball.
Anybody available to house sit for the next 8 days?
I've been given the option of sleeping in any one of four different beds in the house, not including the fold out bed in the office, but instead, I am scrunched in the space of half a couch, as one of the large dogs is taking up the other half. And I guess the fact that she is on my feet means she is taking more than her half.
In the light of the day I met them last week, Gracie and Lily seemed to be practically boring. Lily's life was described to be all that is typical of an old dog who wakes up to turn around and then go back to sleep. Gracie, I was told, could be "walked" without a leash... I would just need to spray the hose around the yard and Gracie would chase after it.
But then maybe there were hints that I should have picked up on, before 2:30 in the morning. Like "Lily scratches at the door when she needs to go out. We are still working on Gracie." And "Gracie is still a puppy... she likes to chew." Or "If for some reason Lily knocks over the baby gate, make sure all of the bedroom doors are closed."
Because it was about midnight that I heard the crash of a baby gate and the thundering of a stampede of dogs as they bounded up the stairs and directly into the one room I had forgotten to close off. I pulled back my covers and opened the door to coral them back down stairs, and they hopped into my bed and turned around to look at me in the same way that you might look at a waitress who has come to take your order but forgotten why she came.
Finally downstairs with the two monstrous dogs, I stepped over the baby gate, and right onto a wet spot on the rug.
At midnight, you have no desire to play detective and find out why the rug happens to be wet, so you pretend that it isn't.
I passed by the dry "puppy pad" of which it was said "The dogs may (hopefully) use the pad, or you can leave the door open so they can go out" and opened the back door, then turned around, climbed back over the baby gate and up to bed.
Finally they quit whining and breaking our their "I've been abandoned" bark, and I fell into a sweet sleep... until 2:30 when I heard the sound of the gate to the back yard rattling as if being attacked by a battering ram.
Back again, down the flight of stairs, over the baby gate, onto the wet spot in the carpet, out the door, around to the side gate, where the two battering rams were so excited to see me, wiggling their hind ends (they lack any sort of respectable tail), happy I had come out to play.
At 2:30 in the morning, the best solution I could come up with was to move the last remaining trash can (the other two I had moved earlier in the evening into the garage so that Beast 1 and 2 would not strew the contents over the entire back yard) in front of the gate and spend the rest of the night on the couch with them happily by my side.
The morning came just in time for me to discover another wet spot on the floor and a mostly chewed, signed baseball.
Anybody available to house sit for the next 8 days?
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