Adventures in Dog-Sitting

Two Dogs I Didn’t Choose

Barking at elevators and shedding in sheets

I used to have no dogs. Now I have two dogs.

Two dogs that don’t belong to me. Two dogs that I didn’t choose. Two dogs on loan from two nuts who think it’s nothing but lovely to have two big dogs in their life.

I have two dogs in my Volkswagen Jetta. Two dogs that won’t sit still on the drive to my apartment. They whine and whimper, and look at me like a nefarious dog napper. They slip through the middle of the front seats and bang their heads into my rear-view mirror. They stick their snouts in front of my eyes during a snowstorm on an eight lane highway.

I have two dogs that don’t trust me. They tug on their leashes, longing to run in opposite directions. They’re confused, and they’re sad, and the only thing they know is that it’s all my fault. If I accidentally drop a leash, I’ll lose one of these dumb dumbs forever. Then I’ll have to go the nearest PetSmart, or Walmart — or wherever one buys a dog nowadays — perusing the shelves until I find a pooch that matches the fur and frame of mind of the one that ran away.

I have two dogs that won’t let me wipe the mud from their paws. I have eight paws frolicking through my apartment, staining the couch, the carpets, the corner table, the cabinets. I have two noses on the hunt, discovering the fragments of long forgotten dinners, snagging an ancient half-sausage from the cracks of my couch.

I have two dogs that need to pee — AGAIN. Two dogs that don’t seem to remember that we just went for a walk two hours ago. How many walks are enough walks? I’ve taken ten thousand steps with these mongrels today, and they have twice as many feet as me.

I have two dogs that bark at footsteps in the hallway. Yesterday they didn’t know this apartment existed, and today they defend it like the Alamo. They bark at the elevator. They bark at the next door neighbor when she sings through the wall. They bark in the middle of the night when they have bad dreams, and the only way to stop them is to invite them into bed with me.

So now I have two dogs shedding two shades of dog hair through my sheets and pillows. I wake up with dog hair between my toes, dog hair in my mouth, and dog hair in places best left unmentioned but that probably rhyme with my sass-crack.

I have two friends. I have more than two friends, but I have two friends that want to go to Irene’s Pub to eat chicken wings and watch a band, just like the way we used to eat chicken wings and watch bands. “I’d love to,” I write. “But I have two dogs. They need to eat dinner. They need to go for a walk. They need to bark at the elevator. They need to press their dirty paws into my pull-out couch.”

I have two dogs that go home tomorrow. I can sleep on the couch, my face unmolested by their slobber tongues. I can eat my supper without their sad eyes staring into my soul, as if I haven’t been bribing them incessantly with liver bites in a desperate bid to be liked by these beasts.

Their owners arrive. They take the dogs away. The pups are thrilled, the owners are thrilled, and I am thrilled most of all. I have my life back. Everything is extraordinarily normal all over again.

I used to have two dogs. Now I have no dogs.

Was it always this quiet in my apartment?

. . .

I wonder what those dogs are up to?

I don’t usually write about dogs. I usually write about nonsense:

Also check out this article on everyday mysteries from Annelise Lords: