Monday, June 07
I ended up taking care of a friend's beasties over the weekend in addition to my own. Not entirely voluntarily. He mentioned it to me when we were in the car one day, aka, "My wife and I are going to her college reunion, would you take care of my animals?" and I said I'd think about it. Next thing I knew he was writing up lists of chores. Oh well. It's not like I had anything better to do with my weekend anyway, so why not spend it taking care of two dogs, four cats, five ducks, an indeterminate amount of chickens, the same of geese, and a goat?
The goat is pretty weird.
Okay, the dogs are pretty weird too. The elder of the two, Murphy, hates everyone but her people, and when she saw it was me opening the door she charged right in with an "Intruders! Alert! Alert!" bark, only backing down when she finally realized that the younger dog, Eight, had taken a subtly different boat. She was barking too, mind, but it was more a "Happy joy joy happy FRIEND!" bark.
So Murphy sulked in the bedroom and Eight played with me. Eight (I used to think it was spelled "Ate", seeing as that was mostly what she did) is a dalmation-something cross, a mix that seems to have left her with unlimited enthusiasm, unlimited energy, and no brains. She's calmed down considerably since the last time I took care of her: at that time she was barely more than a puppy, albeit a big puppy, and much thinner and faster, and I was warned that if I let her off her leash she would run in a sort of orbit around the house and grounds, for quite a while usually, and that my only chance of recapturing her would be to stand and wait for her to come by and then tackle her. If I missed, I would have to wait until the next orbit, usually about half an hour later.
I only let this happen once. In my defense, I was distracted; I had just finished setting up a very complex series of open doors, a sort of reverse trap, in an effort to get Murphy's (now deceased) brother Skink out from the dresser he'd been hiding under for the last two days, and in fact out of the house entirely, because I was tired of cleaning up dog shit. The reverse-trap worked perfectly, and Skink escaped the house, never to darken the bathroom floor again; but Eight escaped as well. This was at night. I had horrible visions of standing in the dark, with a flashlight, all night, waiting for the black-and-white satellite to complete its orbit again, but luckily as I was getting the flashlight I heard the clamor of ducks. Eight loves ducks, and this time her obsession was her undoing. She truncated her orbit for it, and I only had to wait by the ducks for about two minutes before she came back through and was tackled.
She's much fatter and calmer now, although still disturbingly bouncy, and didn't bother me. The goat did. I had luckily been warned that she got loose and that I wasn't to worry about it if she did, because when I came on the first day she was standing in the path waiting for me. She has a disconcerting habit of dancing and frolicking around you as you walk around, occasionally tossing in a lighthearted leap which brings all four of her feet to a level with your head. Of course, this wasn't nearly as disconcerting as her habit of jumping onto the hoods of cars and jumping on you as you passed.
Oh, well. I got some cash out of it, not to mention the stories. And really, what else was I going to do with my weekend?
The goat is pretty weird.
Okay, the dogs are pretty weird too. The elder of the two, Murphy, hates everyone but her people, and when she saw it was me opening the door she charged right in with an "Intruders! Alert! Alert!" bark, only backing down when she finally realized that the younger dog, Eight, had taken a subtly different boat. She was barking too, mind, but it was more a "Happy joy joy happy FRIEND!" bark.
So Murphy sulked in the bedroom and Eight played with me. Eight (I used to think it was spelled "Ate", seeing as that was mostly what she did) is a dalmation-something cross, a mix that seems to have left her with unlimited enthusiasm, unlimited energy, and no brains. She's calmed down considerably since the last time I took care of her: at that time she was barely more than a puppy, albeit a big puppy, and much thinner and faster, and I was warned that if I let her off her leash she would run in a sort of orbit around the house and grounds, for quite a while usually, and that my only chance of recapturing her would be to stand and wait for her to come by and then tackle her. If I missed, I would have to wait until the next orbit, usually about half an hour later.
I only let this happen once. In my defense, I was distracted; I had just finished setting up a very complex series of open doors, a sort of reverse trap, in an effort to get Murphy's (now deceased) brother Skink out from the dresser he'd been hiding under for the last two days, and in fact out of the house entirely, because I was tired of cleaning up dog shit. The reverse-trap worked perfectly, and Skink escaped the house, never to darken the bathroom floor again; but Eight escaped as well. This was at night. I had horrible visions of standing in the dark, with a flashlight, all night, waiting for the black-and-white satellite to complete its orbit again, but luckily as I was getting the flashlight I heard the clamor of ducks. Eight loves ducks, and this time her obsession was her undoing. She truncated her orbit for it, and I only had to wait by the ducks for about two minutes before she came back through and was tackled.
She's much fatter and calmer now, although still disturbingly bouncy, and didn't bother me. The goat did. I had luckily been warned that she got loose and that I wasn't to worry about it if she did, because when I came on the first day she was standing in the path waiting for me. She has a disconcerting habit of dancing and frolicking around you as you walk around, occasionally tossing in a lighthearted leap which brings all four of her feet to a level with your head. Of course, this wasn't nearly as disconcerting as her habit of jumping onto the hoods of cars and jumping on you as you passed.
Oh, well. I got some cash out of it, not to mention the stories. And really, what else was I going to do with my weekend?
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