'Sup gangsta's?
It's been ages since I last blogged, and, as usual, the reason is that things have been getting a little hectic of late. The latest event-o-hecticness has been house-sitting for my aunt and uncle while they cruised along french canals on a riverboat with their daughters. I always love house-sitting for them because they have a really nice place and I get to be away from my family. Now, don't get me wrong, I love them all very much and I love being with them. It's just that a man (it feels SO wrong to refer to myself as a man...it should say 'boy', or at the worst 'guy') needs to feel independent, even if it's not real independence. And I love the freedom of living on my own, having to cook for myself (I LOVE COOKING!!! The novelty will ware off, I'm sure...) and just generally living at my own, albeit slowish, pace.
Coupled with the glorious fantasticallity of house-sitting, comes the actual job of upkeep of the house and it's inhabitants. My aunt and uncle have a cat (previously two cats...a story for another day for those who don't already know it...), a dog and a whole host of potplants. The first and last on that list are a piece of cake to care for, despite my constant forgetting to water the plants. It's the dog that's the problem.
He's a black labrador retriever. He's not even a year old and he has already wraught more damage on that house than a mob of angry peasants storming a castle. In the first week that I house sat for them, he managed to do the following. I kept a list, for my own amusement and to ensure that I could report the horror to the rest of the world via this, my blog.
10/08 Woke up to find that the dog had, during the night devoured a frisbee, a DVD cover, a pack of Prestik sticky putty and a full pack of 'Happy Birthday' stickers, leaving the kitchen floor coated in small festive birthday wishes and bits of plastic.
11/08 Woke up to find that the dog had left, not one, not two, but THREE steaming brown mountains on the kitchen floor. Coupled with this, the mutt had somehow managed to pee UNDER a couch in the TV room! (How a dog does this, I do not know!)
12/08 Woke up to find another turd on the TV room floor.
13/08 Dog obviously felt that previous days present wasn't sufficient and doubled his efforts: two piles of processed dog food on the floor.
14/08 For some reason the pooch was so excited about the prospect of going outside in the morning that he wet himself...and the floor...
15/08 The dog once again felt that he needed to give more. He pooped on the floor again (Thank God for tiles!!!)
16/08 Awoke to discover the remains of a book of unknown title (apparently something to do with buffalo from what I could make out of the pieces of the cover I could find...), a series of magazines, several unopened letters of my aunt and uncle's.
This is but a taste of the horror that is this dog. Coupled with these little daily extras was constant bringing-in of bits of garden, the removal of several bits of paving and the attempted and (luckily!) failed devouring of a garden hose.
I must admit, the daily wailings of the dog's antics weren't nearly as funny as the written version!
ReplyDeleteAnd if you really love cooking so much, you're welcome to come and cook for me while I chase lizards up and down mountains!
I agree with Helen - your daily complaints about the dog were incredibly amusing!
ReplyDeleteI told my boss about the chewing problem - he suggested a spray which deters dogs from eating stuff because it tastes really bad. Sadly, you would probably have to coat the entire house in the stuff, seeing as Finchley seems to chew everything!
and for the record - that spray stuff tastes REALLY bad and if you don't wear a full-on hazmat suit while applying it it not only coats your mouth, throat and nasal passages, but also your hands to a point where you would be doing the cooking with gloves of to avoid the overpowering taste of citronella concentrate!
ReplyDeleteAnd where is that blog post that you promised? I checked and everything!
Yes, I know it's been two years since you posted this, but he destroyed a book and a DVD cover? Either I was not informed of this or I have forgotten... I apologise for our dog's behaviour...
ReplyDelete