Believe me or not, in France it is not that easy to find a dog-sitter.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not looking for the rare gem, but just for someone speaking dog fluently, cause I don't want next vacation to turn into an awful car race like last time I hired a dogsitter.
I had found her on a dog-lover website, and as I was going away just for two days, I had not been too demanding.
She was crazy about dogs, she didn't mind hairs and slobber on her clothes, and enjoyed long walks whatever the weather, so what else?
Unfortunately hardly had we reached our destination when she phoned us. She sounded panic-striken and told me that Canaille, our Springer, had been standing motionless for over half-an-hour right in the middle of the kitchen.
He was deaf to any of her sweet words, and even worse, there was some kind of foam around his mouth.
And yet, after his walk, he had eaten and drunk heartily, he had even offered her to play a fetch-the-ball game, and though he had turned out to be a bad loser, they had had a good time.
But, since then, no way to drag him out of the kitchen.
She added that actually he looked as if he had had a paralytic stroke!
Jeez, that was too much for dogaholic parents!
We drove all the way back home, and never had a 100 kilometers journey seemed so long and the speed traps so numerous!
When we arrived home, our throats were dry and our legs like cotton wool.
And to top it all off, no cheerful barkings to welcome us!
We rushed to the kitchen, and there he was!
Yes, Canaille, our sweetheart, the apple of our eyes, was standing there as impassive as a horseguard at the entrance of Buckingham Palace.
A quick glance around calmed down our hearts…
Paralyzed? No, just on the watch!
Foaming at the mouth? No, just drooling in a kind of Niagara Falls way over the loaf of bread the dogsitter had left on the worktop!
Well, more fear than harm, but if our dogsitter had spoken dog fluently, she would have understood immediately that Canaille was just asking
" Could you pass the bread, please? ", and we would not have ruined our weekend.
" Could you pass the bread, please? ", and we would not have ruined our weekend.
So now, either I find a dog-speaking dogsitter, or I create a dictionary. What do you think?
