Dog-Sitting Can Be Rough

Last year over March break we took care of a neighbour's dog as they went on vacation. We brought the dog into our house. It was a collie. You'd think I would call it "Lassie" because of, well, Lassie. Or you'd think I'd call it "Laddie" because of The Simpsons. But you'd be wrong. I call it Napoleon Dynamite. Why? Because it was a mouth breather. And a drooler. It wasn't uncommon to walk around the house and suddenly find your sock soaking up a puddle of it's drool. It wasn't fun getting soakers inside the house.

I think Max liked this dog because it made him look obedient and well behaved. I've only ever seen Max take something from the counter-top once. Napoleon Dynamite did it several times. It had no qualms against getting up on the table either.

To be fair, I'm sure Napoleon Dynamite is well behaved at home. It's not really familiar with us, or our house. I don't know what commands it knows. It's owners might be issuing orders in French.

And this dog was so needy. It was always underfoot and would never leave anyone alone. It probably has separation anxiety and missed it's owner.

It kept chomping at my bits trying to give me a sex-change operation. Maybe it was doing that because I kept referring to it as an "it" instead of a "he" or a "she". To this day, I still don't know if it's a "he" or a "she". It's real name isn't gender specific. Either way, a dog bite in the leg or the rear is bad enough, but a canine administered sex change operation isn't very palatable, even if it's done with some lab work.

It turns out that it had some sort of mouth infection that made it do that. That was supposedly cured since last year.

This year the dog came back. This time for almost 2 weeks. It wasn't as bad as last year. It stopped trying to perform any operations on me. But, it did insist on repeatedly making sure I was still a man. (I think a lot of dogs do that. Max doesn't. Good boy!)

Napoleon Dynamite walks a lot slower than Max does. Max is always pulling, trying to get away. He doesn't seem to care that the more he pulls, the more his chain around his neck tightens up, and the less he can breath. Napoleon Dynamite doesn't have that problem. He walks really slowly. The difficulty comes with walking them at the same time. Napoleon Dynamite wants to stop and eat the flowers, while Max wants to chase after every passing-by photon. If one person tried to walk the two dogs at the same time they'd wind up being drawn and quartered. (So much for separation anxiety!)

When the owner came to retrieve the dog, we didn't beg to keep it for any longer. One dog is enough for us.