An open letter to the family I house/pet-sit for:
Seriously, y'all, it's been a couple years now. You pay me great, your house is awesome, your dogs and cats are sweet and all that shiz, but what do you think I'm up to? I swear, I'm not throwing keggers, I'm not practicing Santeria in the back yard, I'm not running an opium den in the basement - do you really feel the need to orchestrate "random" drop-bys of your friends/neighbors/family members? Really? Don't you think that by now, you would have found at least one stray beer can or chicken head? Honestly, when I'm not working/studying/going to class, I spend 95% of my time lying in your bed, eating Taquitos and pot pies and watching Dirty Jobs on the Discovery Channel, fantasizing about Mike Rowe following me around for a day at my job, wincing at castrations and making snarky double entendres about fecal loops or something (afterwards, we could go out to dinner, have a few drinks...you know...maybe take a shower and wash off the cat pee?). Anyway, I digress. The remaining 5% of the time is spent walking back and forth from the kitchen, nuking more pot pies and Taquitos.
Why is this an issue, you ask?
Well, you see, their dogs are very high maintenance - they HAVE to go out every 2-3 hours, or they pee/poop on the rug that cost more than my car - this is very frustrating as I am not able to run home every 2-3 hours, and there is no reason why adult, perfectly healthy dogs can't hold their bowels for a couple hours. Clearly, it makes me look like a bad pet-sitter when the owners come home to gajillion pee spots, and I can only clean up so many in secrecy before they start to notice their supply of Nature's Miracle is starting to diminish. So, I took to putting them in the laundry room while I was at work/class - and magically - they went 5-6 hours with no accidents. Much more manageable. And, their laundry room is at least three times the size of my freshman dorm, so it's more than enough space for two medium-sized dogs, plus their giant beds and toys. Guilt level = 0.
Until, yesterday, I came home to the dogs running free in the house, with a sticky note attached to the laundry room door:
"Locking dogs in laundry room is UNACCEPTABLE." Underline, underline. No signature. Uhhh, OK whatev.
(1.) Technically they weren't "locked", just closed in.
(2.) Just WHY is that unacceptable? What do you think the dogs do in a giant house while no one's home? Run from room to room critiqueing the artwork? No. They sleep. And in this case, pee.
(3.) Who are you and why were you in the house?
This isn't the first time people have popped up out of nowhere - I can't count the number of times I've woken up to the housekeeper dusting my nightstand, or come home to some form the anonymous note "Stopped by - you weren't here. I'll be back." WHAT THE HELL? The worst was the time I was taking a shower upstairs, and I heard the dogs go crazy over something downstairs - I though it was the UPS guy or a squirrel or something since they stopped after a few minutes. I got out, put on a towel, and trotted downstairs just to make sure - I turned the corner and ran smack into a delivery guy and his partner dragging a new dishwasher. I screamed (managed to hold up my towel, at least), and they just kind of stared at me blankly and said "Well, she gave us the garage code so we just came in."
I just can't help but to assume that the only reason to NOT give a simple warning the person staying in your home "Hey, so-and-so is coming by to do such-and-such" is to hope to catch them in the middle of something. Grrrrrrrrrrrrr.
1 comment:
I'm only answering the question, "Why is this unacceptable?"
I have never worked as a pet sitter, nor have I ever left my dog with someone outside my direct supervision. I will say that locking my dog in my laundry room would be completely unacceptable to me. "Locking" my dog anywhere would be completely unacceptable to me, with scant few exceptions. But laundry rooms, in particular, typically have hard flooring. As the owner of a giant breed, I never, ever (got that? Never!) allow my dog to lie on hard surfaces if it can be helped. (My nine-year-old Dane has baby soft elbows, without a hint of calluses, as a result.) The command, "Get on the couch," or "Get on the bed," is a common retort in my house.
I'm lucky, in that my best friend is a veterinarian. So even at the clinic, my dog is free to roam, and I supervise her every move. She has been caged just once since I adopted her. (That was before my friend moved to my city, and I had to see a veterinarian who required me to leave my dog at the clinic for four hours, for radiographs.)
Actually, that's a story which highlights my concerns about leaving my dog with people who think it's okay to do all sorts of inappropriate things to dogs. At that clinic, recognizing it would be the first time I'd left this dog alone with anyone...and desperately trying to avoid it...I had my "speech" all ready when I dropped her off. "She'll do whatever you ask of her. But you have to ask. Please don't pull her by the throat or push her or force her. She knows just about every command. Just ask." You know...that kind of thing.
I walked her to the back to put her in a lower cage that was really far too short for a Great Dane (but the only one I was offered). I closed the door in time to see a Lab bolt into the room, with a kennel worker in hot pursuit. She was screaming the dog's name, then grabbed it by the collar and hissed, "Bad dog!" dragging out of the room. I looked at the receiving technician who was with me. She understood the look on my face. It was like, "I can't leave my dog here." She did her best to reassure me. We went back to the front office and I gave my speech. Four hours couldn't come soon enough. I never went back to that clinic after that.
Being a former vet. tech., myself, I help with any of my dog's procedures at my friend's clinic. And why is this necessary? Well, one example explains why. Even though I was right there when we went to re-radiograph my dog (first one didn't work out very well), a vet. tech. grabbed my dog's collar and began to physically pull her into the x-ray room, clearly as though this is the normal procedure for her. When I saw this, I politely removed the loser's...er...um...young woman's fingers from around my dog's collar, then promptly removed the collar, to discourage any future incidents of that nature.
When I worked as a veterinary technician, I had to train every new employee to gently get dogs to volunteer for as many things as possible. People would often suggest they didn't have time to be kind or understanding, but I found the complete opposite to be true. When I caught one new tech. attempting to drag a fearful dog into a run, I stopped her. She'd been working at it for a short while, to no avail. I gave my quick speech about gentleness, reducing stress, etc., etc. Then I walked into the run, patted my leg and called the dog in a sing-song voice, and it walked right in on its own. Voila! Saved time and aggravation, for both!
As an experienced dog trainer (30 years now), I've learned that most people choose force over training, and physical restraint and "management" over addressing the problem behavior head on. What never ceases to amaze me is the unwavering justification people give for treating their dogs badly. I sometimes ask if they believe it would be okay to treat a two-year-old girl the way they treat their dogs. Their answers usually tell me why I'm right never to leave my perfectly-behaved, cherished, respected dog alone with anyone.
O N T H E O T H E R H A N D..
...I properly housetrain my dogs. The 'two hour method' works like a charm for me, and I've been able to housetrain most puppies in a few days, and even problem adult dogs in a week or two. It's always better to attack the problem, rather than try to manage it. If you just manage the symptoms, the problem will always remain.
Sure, it wasn't fair when I recently looked after a friend's dog I was assured was well-behaved AND HOUSETRAINED, but wasn't. Sure, I shouldn't have been the one who was up every two hours, day and night, housetraining this puppy, as well as teaching it to chew appropriate things, to heel properly on-leash, and to stop barking? Of course it's not fair. But if I was to survive the remainder of the puppy's three week stay, I had to deal with his problem behaviors. Just locking him in a room for hours at a time would not be acceptable.
I think if I were in your shoes, and you were genuinely trying to housetrain the dogs by restricting their mobility until they were reliably housetrained, then I might have written a "reply" note stating something to the effect that, "When adult dogs are not reliably housetrained, one must go back to square one, and re-housetrain them. Part of that can include keeping them isolated to an area just large enough to stand, turn around, and lie down. Dogs naturally have an aversion to soiling their sleeping and eating area, and this natural inclination helps to properly housetrain them. Since they're not currently adequately housetrained, I'm doing the owners a favor by attempting to accomplish this for them."
You know...something like that. ;-) I certainly wouldn't allow some stranger to bully me with post-it notes. :-)
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