Feel Like Complaining

Last week we had a previous border stay with us again. Beau is the Mini Aussie who is obsessed with playing with a ball. He was pretty laid back the first day because his Mom had already worn him out. But the next day, right on cue, he wanted to go out and play. We set up a three times a day schedule and we all have a turn. It gets kind of boring after awhile because that's all he wants to do. He's supposed to be back two more times this spring but at least the weather will be better and a little more enjoyable. We had a trial one night stay with Koda recently and then he came back for a longer one. He's a 10 year old mixed breed and is two months out from having knee repair surgery. He's using to playing with other dogs but has to keep from running so we were a good fit. He gets a walk around the block everyday, which he really enjoys. It's hard sometimes to keep your mouth shut when you see a dog that could benefit from less food. He is very overweight which p...

I haven't really complained about anything in awhile and I don't want you all to think I'm getting soft in my new roll of Faux Dog Mom. This one couple I sit for in their home has been challenging me mentally recently. Not the wife, she's lovely. He's nice too but a micro-manager and nit-picker. And although he's nice when he's doing it, it still bugs me. He explains over and over about how to feed the animals and now the cats have a new feeding regime; he has to explain that too. Oh and he talks so loud! He's not elderly but maybe he has a hearing problem. Or maybe he has always talked like that. Their home has very high ceilings and his booming voice just echos in there and seriously grates on my introverted nerves. When he calls me, everyone else in the room can hear him. After my last long stay of about 3 weeks, I wasn't expecting to hear from them until later this year. But when his Mom died, he called me. After we set up dates and times he ...

I haven't printed a book of my blog for a few years now, but they were having a sale that I just could not say no to. Plus not writing as much saves some money too so I was able to print the last two years very economically. While looking back at dates I realized that the end of February will mark 11 years of blogging for me. I know many of you have been blogging much longer, so congrats to all of us as we near or have passed our milestones. I am trying to type this on a new tablet I bought before Christmas.  I could probably do better on my phone! It's a 10-inch 2-in-1 tablet which means you can use an attachable keyboard or just go with the touch screen. It had great reviews but I didn't read enough to realize it isn't HD, which I am very spoiled by on my other tablets. The keyboard is obviously tiny but also glitchy and not smooth in scrolling. It's not as fast as anything else I have. But it has more storage than anything else I have, so that is its saving...

As 2017 exited, I tallied up all my doggy figures. We have boarded or sat 39 dogs and 5 cats with several of those being repeat customers. My first actual month of business was February and I made a whopping $190.00. By December I hit $1428.00 for that month. I'm sure many sitters just over the holidays exceeded what I made for the year, but I'll take 1-2 dogs over 15 at a time any day. The Kid got hired as an intern at a local non-profit agency that helps foster children transfer smoothly into the foster system. They provide things a foster family may need or advocate to get kids from sitting in a dshs office into a home quicker. The Kid will be start or improve their social media presence, go to meetings and functions already scheduled, and learn everything she can about their agency. Even though the director is a doggy client and it probably made for an easier interview, I'm proud that she wasn't going to back down and presented to them what she could for them. Tho...

We're trying to get back to normal a bit. I had a short stay with these two over Christmas. Barky little things but they were cute and not much trouble. Mostly I had a problem getting used to cleaning up potty pads instead of them going outside. I guess it's common with little dogs but I find it so gross. The owner was very happy with my service though, and mailed me $40 with a nice note. Winnie was picked up on Tue, and she gave me a $50 tip so I just passed it on to The Kid. That dog fell in love with her and she pretty much single-handedly took care of her, so she deserved it. We had a few days rest so went to a movie one day, and drove around to look at Christmas lights another night. Even though our Christmas was a little messed up, we still had fun. Last Friday we had this shy girl dropped off. Kuma is a 10 year old Flat Coated Retriever. They usually take her to the lake cabin over the holidays but a grandchild is severely allergic, so they had to find a ...