THE ADVENTURES OF A DOGSITTER

I'm a dogaholic, and to be honest, I'm not on the way to recovery.

The first symptoms appeared years ago when I started dogsitting.

I remember being always on the verge of tears when saying good-bye to the doggy I had homed and already bonded with.

When it was a friend's dog, I always respected the deadline to give it back, cause a friend in need is a friend indeed.

But when it was my daughter's, I often tended to  procrastinate, and that's how I gained a " dognapper " reputation.

 Believe me, post-dogsitting blues was a rough patch to go through, and I experienced it even after taking care of Guiness, a one-year-old dog, although he nearly turned me into a kind of Captain Nemo.

I'm not kidding! When he left, I felt as if I had been roaming the depths of the sea in a makeshift submarine.

Really! A makeshift submarine!

Actually, Guiness was a Newfoundland dog. I knew about his passion for water, but in those days we were living near a river, so I thought it would be easy to satisfy his swimming skills.

Unfortunately, things didn't turn out that simple…

First, when Guiness arrived in our place, he immediately had a crush on Indy, our ten-year-old Springer, and to show her how much he loved her, he forgot his weight, jumped on her and nearly crushed her!

To escape her over-enthusiastic lover, Indy took up her quarters on the first floor, and as Guiness had been taught to never climb up any stairs, I thought everything would go smoothly during his two weeks' stay.

But, when bowl time came, I quickly felt out of my depth, and a quarter later I was really in deep water, literally and figuratively!

For Guiness, drinking was a kind of warm-up activity before going to the river.

He dunked half of his head into his water bucket, played the deep-sea explorer for a few minutes, emerged again, and to show his satisfaction, gave me a splash!

I was soaked to the skin!

Teaching him the dos an don'ts about drinking turned vain, and I quickly became a past master at mopping, and at choosing kind of waterproof clothes, too, cause if Newfoundland dogs are water lovers, they are also champion droolers... 

When Guiness went back to his owner's, I was sad, but home and dry!

Yet, that kind of " 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea " episode didn't cure me, cause, I love dogs so much that, you see, I even blog about them!

Have a pawesome day!