Guest Post: I am not Dr. Doolittle

Hi everyone, I'm still on vacation so enjoy today's guest poster!

*We now interrupt your regularly scheduled blog post to bring you this special message*

Hi, y'all! I'm Erin from My Way This Time. I'm a proud dog lady, self-declared social media nerd, newly hired webmaster, and animal print enthusiast. I blog about my crazy relationship antics, my dogs (Bean, Lima, and Kale), and rubbing elbows with famous people.

So, Hayley's on vacation right now. Lucky bitch. And she's been kind enough to not only leave me the keys to her apartment but also to her blog. That's right, Hayley and I are friends IRL. I like to think I had a little something to do with her step into blogging. Or maybe I'm just pompous.

Anywho, as the great friend that I am try to be, I've offered to watch after her cats while she's away. No biggie, I'm an animal person. But I will NEVER ever under any circumstance dog sit again. EVER.

For those of you who aren't familiar with me or my blog, I have two Chihuahuas and the ex-bf/sorta bf/whatever he is now, J, has a Lab mix. Those three dogs are my kids. I'll gladly take care of them, I play with them, I love them. But someone else's dog? A different story.

A friend of mine (who reads my blog so I have to be kind of hush-hush about this post) recently asked me to dog sit. I'm a good friend and a dog person so I agreed. I should also add that I'm scatterbrained at the least and busy to the max. When I finally got around to asking her how long I would be watching the dog, it was too late to back out and boy did I want to. She wanted me to watch her for 10 days. WHAT?! 10 days?! Holy spit, I couldn't imagine asking anyone to watch my dogs for more than maybe a weekend, but 10 days?!

It can't be THAT bad, right?

WRONG.

This dog was the dog from hell. Cue bullets.

• The night my friend was supposed to drop off the dog, I didn't hear from her until 11pm and she said, "Sorry, I forgot I was supposed to drop her off. Can I drop her off tomorrow morning?" I asked what time and she said, "6am." HUH? On a Saturday? No. How do you forget to drop off your dog? So then I had to go pick up the dog from her house on Saturday.
  
• The first night at my house, the dog broke and then chewed up her crate liner. My whole house is hardwood floors so I put her crate on a towel to keep my floor from getting scratched. She started pulling the towel up into the crate leaving my bare floors exposed. She then would poop or pee or both all over the floor. REALLY!?
• She refused to go to the bathroom outside. (See: pottying in kennel) If I left her in the backyard to potty, she would go under the house and into the front yard. If I stayed outside with her, she just followed me around. I put her on the leash and walked her around the front yard. Nothing. I guess doing it all over my house was more appealing.
• She wouldn't eat so I put her food bowl in her kennel with her. She would knock over her bowl, spilling the food everywhere, and chew on the bowl.
• She sheds like you would not believe. I have to admit that I'm spoiled with my Chihuahuas. They hardly shed. Like, barely. This dog sheds horribly. I hate to imagine how many Swiffers I went through. But I guess I can't really hold that over her head; she's a dog.
• My friend then has the audacity to ask me if I'd go pick up her other dog from her house and take him to boarding. First of all, I was working on that day. Second of all, no, I think I've done enough to help.
• When they came home on Monday, they called and asked me if I wanted to meet them with the dog. Let me get this straight: I pick your dog up, watch her for 10 days, put up with all this, AND you want me to bring her back to you? Did I miss the part when this dog became my dog? I don't think so.
  

Over all, the whole situation was way to stressful on me, my boys, and my friend's dog. She was apologetic but laughed off most of the dog's behavior while I'm left with two attention starved Chihuahus with diarrhea. I just sit back and wonder how she could ever have the courage to ask someone to do that again. She offered to watch my dogs if need be, but I'll pass.

In my opinion, part of being a responsible dog owner is having a place to consistently take your dog when you go on vacation. J and I have boarded Kale twice and he loves it (I've never left my boys). He's safe, he gets taken care of, he gets to play with other dogs, and it's no burden to our friends. It's a little pricey, but to me it's the price of having a dog. We work the price of boarding into our vacation fund.

Moral of the story is I'll never dog sit again. I'll check on your cat or watch your reptile/rodent/fish until the cows come home. But you'll have to find someone else to watch Fido.

Am I completely off my rocker in being astounded at this whole situation? What do you do with your dogs when you go on vacation?

*****

Thanks to Hayley for letting me guest post. If you're interested in getting to know more about me, read my blog, follow me on Twitter, or shoot me an email. :)