Adventures in Dogsitting (preface & intro)

Recently, a rather dramatic story happened. I get the impression that my life has had more than its usual share of drama in the last few weeks, but those stories are for another time. I'm going to give some probably unnecessary context here for Part II.

Some friends of mine (a married couple from church) own a small dog, (I'll call her T here) but are traveling in Taiwan for a few weeks. They asked another friend, L, to take care of her, and she's done so for the last week or so. However, it's a bit of an inconvenience for her: since her apartment doesn't allow dogs, she's been staying at the couple's apartment, taking the dog for a morning walk, then commuting a good bit longer to work, all of which requires her to wake up considerably earlier than she normally does.

Since my work has been rather slow lately, I offered to either to have T stay at my place (my roommate, who owns the condo I'm in, is fine with dogs), or stay at the couple's apartment myself, which is a bit closer to my work, and, I thought, might give me a chance to get some work done in a different environment.

I didn't know at the time that I made this offer that my roommate's parents were going to be out of town last week until yesterday, and that their dog, M, would also be at the condo until Mon afternoon/evening.

In any case, I planned to be out of town from Thurs to Sat of last week. And L, who was taking care of T, said she'd email the couple and see if that would be ok with them. So, we planned for me to take care of T this week, with the couple's permission.

(As a bit of an aside as to the extent of my experience with pets, I've never owned a dog before, and the only pets my family has ever had or taken care of were some goldfish. Still, one of my good friends since junior high has some dogs and a cat, and I'd always gotten along ok with them. And in grad school, a very good friend of mine had a dog and a cat, and for some reason, his dog, also a rather small dog, really bonded with me. To this day, she always gets really excited to see me when I visit, to the point that my friend jokes that she likes me better than she likes him.

Sat evening I came home, saw my roommate, saw his parents' dog M, and went to dinner with a friend. After dinner, we came to my place, and started watching a movie. M made some whimpering noises, which we understood to mean that she wanted something, but we couldn't figure it out. I made sure M's water and food bowls were stocked, we tried her squeaky toys, and I opened the front door (leading to a small patio, enclosed by a gate), but she didn't seem interested. So we gave up and basically ignored her whimpering. When my roommate came home, he took M out for a real walk, and she almost immediately relieved herself. Goes to show how well I can tell what's really going on with dogs.)

In any case, I talked with L and agreed that I'd take care of T from Sun night to Thurs. I picked up T from L's apartment Sun night (she and her boyfriend had snuck T into their complex over the weekend). Also got T's food, bowls, treats of various kinds, cage, bed, leash, and a small gate for enclosing T when I'd be out. And L passed on to me various instructions regarding dog care. We also arranged that I'd get the key to the couple's apartment Mon evening, after L got off from work. So for Sun night and Mon during the day, T would stay at my place, along with M (my roommate's dog).

I drove home, unpacked the various dog paraphernalia I'd acquired, and realized L hadn't told me what T is used to with regard to sleeping arrangements. I had found out that when T stayed at L's boyfriend's apartment, she'd peed on his floor, so I figured I should keep T in a place with tile. Since my kitchen didn't work, this meant it was my bathroom. Not wanting her to pee in there, either, and guessing that this behavior might have something to do with anxiety about being in a new place, I stayed up with her in my bathroom with her, trying to reassure her. I also didn't know how much light T was used to sleeping with, so I left a flashlight on so that it wasn't too dark. Eventually, I snuck out of the bathroom, closed the door, and went to my room. Then a few minutes later, I heard her whining. So I went back to the bathroom, stayed with her a while, hoped she'd fallen asleep, then snuck out again. This cycle repeated itself numerous times, and I think the reason why it perpetuated itself was that in closing the bathroom door, I made enough sound that it caused her to waken. And maybe she also felt or smelled my absence.

Eventually, I went to my room, and she either stopped whining, or I was too tired to hear or care, and I fell asleep. And then woke up the next morning to attend to her. My roommate's comment was that I looked like I'd had a rough night.

Anyway, Part II, the more interesting story, comes in the next post.