Adventures in House Sitting (Part 2)

My second house sitting experience was for the McQueens. It was in Sault Ste. Marie. Jack, Wendy, and Robin had taken off to go somewhere and asked me to "take care" of Jane, Bruce, Max, Cerberus, and the house.

It was mostly uneventful, except for the time Bruce and I made a frozen pizza. These frozen pizzas come on a cardboard disc. You're supposed to take the pizza off of the disc and then put the pizza in the oven. We neglected to do that, and we put the cardboard in the oven with the pizza. But there was no fires or anything.

However, the back yard was fenced off to allow the dogs to run freely and answer nature's call. The fence had a gate at the front of the house. The door to the fenced-off portion was in the back of the house. The back yard extended to the side of the house, beside the garage where there were no windows.

Before going out I would open the gate and allow the dogs out to do their business. After a few minutes they would come and want to be let back in. If they didn't come back I could call their names and clap my hands twice and they would come.

One day while Bruce and Jane were at school, I had a few things to do in the city. I let the dogs out and waited. And waited. And waited. "Where the heck are those dogs?" I opened the door, looked out back and I didn't see them. I called their names and clapped my hands. Nothing.

Hmmmm.

This was during the autumn. The weather wasn't all bad yet. Perhaps they were lying around the side yard where I couldn't see them. I got my shoes on and attempted to make my way through the mine-field that was the McQueen's backyard. (That is to say, the main thing the backyard was used for was a latrine for the dogs.) I turned the corner to find the gate had been unlatched, was now opened, and no dogs were in sight.

Awwwww nuts! (I'll refrain from singing "Who Let The Dogs Out.")

So For the next while I ran through the otherwise quiet yelling "Max! Cerberus!" I went back to the house to call some people that might know where the dogs would go if they ever got away. No answers.

I ran around the neighbourhood again. Eventually I gave up. I would have to explain to the McQueens that their dogs had run away. As I got home, who should I see hanging around the front of the driveway to the McQueen's house, but Max and Cerberus! I then had the task of getting them back in the house and giving them a stern talking to.