The Pet-Sitter

Cleo was one of my first of many, many pets. :)

You might know this about me and you might not: I am a pet sitter.
I love animals and people trust me with their pets and houses, so it works. By the way, in case you don't know, I basically live in a zoo. I've grown up with several cats, dogs, geckos, snakes, tadpoles, rabbits, birds, horses, goats, miniature horses, chickens, fish, etc. So, needless to say, I know my way around animals. I've actually never babysat before. I interviewed for a baby-sitting position once, but I think the Dad thought I was a little too weird or something... heh heh... false: I was born with the perfect amount of weirdness.

So, I thought I'd just share some interesting pet-sitting stories with you this evening.

1. Butt-Wiping Dogs. Ok, so this is a rather disgusting story. I had to watch these two shih tzu (pronounced "shits-you" for a reason)  dogs for nine days. They ate off of fancy plates and couldn't be left alone for more than an hour, but that's nothing. These dogs were so short that when they went outside to go #2 they crapped on themselves and I literally had to wipe their butts. It was fun times... 
2. Sorry, my cat ate your bird. So, one time I was pet-sitting my neighbors bird and the bird stayed at my house and he didn't really like me (wow, that's a lot of and's). He'd hiss at me whenever I'd do anything around his cage. Well, one day I woke up (actually I do this everyday), came downstairs for breakfast and there were feathers EVERYWHERE. There was also blood smeared all over the walls and floor too. I started crawling on the floor and screaming out the bird's name. I found my cat with feathers in her mouth, yelled at her, and then tossed her outside. I eventually found the poor guy, naked, and quivering in my dog's food dish. He didn't hiss at me this time when I neared him. 
3. Can you shoot this goat please? One of my most recent pet-sitting gigs involved horses, cats, and goats. One of the goats, the owner's told me, was on his last leg of life. He was over 20 years old and was deaf and blind. This poor guy's name was Frick. I was starting to get attached to him when I found him on his side, squirming around. I flipped him over, in a attempt to get him up, but he couldn't do it. He didn't have the strength. His face was all cut up from squirming around, his tongue kind of plopped out and was foaming, and then he started convulsing and made these really awful sounds of death. I called one of their neighbors and had to ask them to shoot the goat. It was an interesting experience. 

Now, I don't want to scare you or anything because most of my pet-sitting jobs don't turn out this way, but I thought they were interesting stories that might entertain you. 

Tips for when you are house-sitting:

1. Don't watch scary TV shows or movies unless you are ok with the fact that you are going to be freaked out all night long in someone else's house. Know your exit routes for when that serial killer or zombie comes!

Love, 

Manders