Bogey
Bogey was a young English Cocker Spaniel who might have missed some school days but had a sunny disposition. He needed day care because his owner was in town looking at wedding venues in the area. I notice that Ricky the collie is really collie-ing hard now, doing welcoming duties, some light herding, really gauging each dog’s activity and ability level and entertaining them at their own speed. Adorable. Rocket hates them all.
Ricky doing most of the entertaining
JJ
JJ stayed with us for about four days. She was a little border collie with a wonky foot, a misshapen jaw and crossed eyes with a rather ancient history of seizures. She came with two pages of details on how to assemble her meals in order that they are most pleasing to the eye and easily eaten by her imperfect mouth while ensuring that she ingests both her veterinarian-prescribed medicine and some rather snake-oily supplements as well as the healthiest of foods. I was happy to do it. She was like living with a dog version of Lisa Loopner. Weird and endearing. She enjoyed being part of a “pack” and loved to walk with her new dog friends despite her challenging foot situation.
Don’t you just want to give her a noogy?
Priscilla
Priscilla was a rather bully-shaped boxer. Priscilla was a bully. Ricky loves to entertain his guests, but Priscilla was INTENSE. She wanted to wrestle all day. She played so rough that Ricky ended up a bit bruised, sore and tired. She was sweet when not in play-attack mode, but I ended up refereeing all of her outside time so that she did no further damage. This is the first time I saw Ricky walking away from a play opportunity.
Hey let’s play with this stick! No the stick! Not my throat! Aaaah!
Homer
Homer was a little mini labradoodle like Rocket. Finally, a dog that Rocket will enjoy. Well, “enjoy” might be a little much. Let’s say “tolerate.” We had a pretty good day, but the first day of day care for any dog is so fraught with emotion, it’s pretty much what I do all day. If I had planned on working in my studio or doing any paper work or (lordy) vacuuming, I might as well reschedule that because it’s not getting done on a doggy day.
Look how happy Rocket (left) is to finally have a doggy guest his size?
Thor
Thor is the one that sent this dog sitting ship straight for the rocks. Rover recommends that sitters, owners and dogs meet each other before they agree to a multi-day booking, and I completely agree and meet each owner and dog before booking a stay. However, I’m usually more concerned about the behavior of my own dogs. Ricky often comes on too strong in his needy lets-be-friends boinging at new dogs that he can be off-putting. Rocket tries hard to be off-putting as a choice, hoping to scare away any would-be guests. At Thor’s meet-and-greet, his owners had lots of questions and seemed like attentive and responsible dog keepers.
They may have been responsible, but they were young, and I know from experience as a former young person, that I was a responsible young dog owner but not a knowledgable one. I made a lot of mistakes from ignorance. Of course, when I was young, I owned a chihuahua, not a large German Shepherd Dog. Of all the dogs to own when one is dumb, German Shepherds are probably the worst choice. They are dogs with weapons and one of their weapons is their tenacity. And when their tenacity is trained on a mild mannered collie, the collie will end up tired, sore, covered in saliva, and ready to see the backside of one German Shepherd Dog. That was a long, long weekend full of heavy duty supervision, allowing play and exercise but disallowing damaging play.
A note to dog owners: Friends, neuter your dogs. I know there is a lot of discussion about when is the healthiest time to neuter a dog and recommendations may be changing as we speak, but there does not seem to be much of an advantage to waiting past a year for most breeds and 18 months for the largest breeds. I can tell you that every single intact male that walked into my house (Including Brad of Hellhound fame) peed on something. Every one was overly aggressive towards either his housemate or my dogs at some point or other in their stay. Thor was no exception. I don’t know if Thor’s owners are planning on neutering him, but since his stay I changed my Rover page to disallow intact males.
German Shepherd owners always dress their dog up in tactical gear ready for combat. Meanwhile Rocket is doing his best to sabotage the class picture.
Beano
Another young owner, this time of an Australian Cattle Dog typically built with extra gravity per pound. Part of my problem is that I want to fix every dog that stays with me (with the exception of Megan the psychopath), even if they only stay for one day like Beano. Is this where my shoulder started hurting? Not sure, but Beano was probably the worst leash-pulling dog of my whole Rover career. All his muscles - legs, abs, facial, alimentary, sphincter - went toward pulling that leash. Corrections meant nothing, treats would have worked over the course of weeks, but for one day, treats are just happy interludes in a day of leash pulling fun. I should have clocked the leash pulling, turned him around and allowed him to run in circles in my yard if he wanted exercise. I didn’t need to put my shoulder in danger for a daycare dog. But I wanted to be the BEST daycare sitter. That’s my problem, not Beano’s.
Beano fell pretty hard for Ricky. It didn’t stop him from pulling like a plow horse. I know, those popular harnesses make it worse, but try to be heard over all the ads for them.
Delores Handrake
Tillie’s name was not Delores Handrake, but her owner filled out the form with her own name (which is not Delores Handrake - I changed that up so as not to embarrass her here), which made for some fun misunderstandings and also gave me a very top contender for any future dog that I may need to name. Tillie was only here for a day but she will live in my heart forever. Tillie weighed about 7 pounds and looked like a cross between a chihuahua and the Lorax (the hairy book version, not the weirdly smooth movie version).
This is the sort of dog I dreamed that I was going to be caring for when I started this venture - small, hilarious, mostly happy and friendly. Unfortunately, dogs like this normally have neighbors, friends, or family who will happily care for them. Tillie just happened to be camping nearby with her owners and needed a place to crash while her owner watched the rodeo. It turns out the perfect ones are the rare ones.
Sun’s out - tongues out. Ricky loves his pet dog.
Callie and Reese
Another day care day with dogs from out-of-town. This time at a wedding. Perfect angels. No complaint.
I forgot whether this is Callie or Reese. She knew how to work the light for a successful insta moment.
This mid-summer mixture was enough to teach me that this would be a great gig if I didn’t have any dogs or cats to protect and was happy to devote 100% of my time to vigilance AND bought doggy pee cleaner by the gallon. Next week, let’s bring this all home with a second visit from the Hellhounds. See you soon for the final part in this mediocre saga (and more pictures).