Once a chump, always a chump

Dogsitting. I sit here listening to the ragged barking of two bored terriers ricochet off the neighbor's houses. For the first time it occurs to me that it is not an honor to be asked by vague acquaintances to stay over at their place and babysit their dogs. I used to think that this was a sign that they view me as an upright person, reliable and worthy of being trusted with their possessions and their creatures’ wellbeings. Now I understand that it is simply because I am the only person they know who is not married and with children, or else openly insane.

Also, because I am a chump.

These are the white Westies whose names are Billy and Collins, meaning I get to stand in the backyard screaming the name of the ex-poet-laureate of the United States to the sounds of frantic, impervious barking. They are brothers, and would be indistinguishable to me save the fact that Collins is slightly more sedate and will sometimes stop barking after I scream his name for the fourth or fifth time, whereas Billy likes to bark until I have actually physically tackled him and dragged him into the house by his collar. I would be perfectly happy to let both of them stand outside and bark until they lost their voices, permanently, but this is a fairly upscale neighborhood and the police don’t have a whole lot to do.

Though they are the last dogs I will ever, ever dogsit for, Billy and Collins are certainly not the worst. That honor belongs to two other terriers, oft-mentioned in my former blog, both of whom seemed determined to shit their way into the Guinness Book of World Records with the distinction of the most piles of dogshit ever deposited on a single carpet. This, despite having a dog door. I might add that the more malevolent of these terriers was also responsible for the most harrowing week in my recent memory, in which he decided to randomly stop taking his twice-daily antibiotic pills tucked into the peanut butter/cheese/butter/ice cream I offered him, preferring instead to slink under the owners’ bed where he would barricade himself, teeth bared, snarling and lunging at my hands like something out of Aliens, until I was forced to don a jean jacket and gardening gloves and pull this horrible devil out from under the bed and crouch over him, sweating and trying to force a tiny pill down his throat while he did everything in his power to dismember me. I have never hated any living animal as much as I did that terrier.

Certainly not Billy nor Collins, who are almost cute in a brusque, terrieresque sort of way. When they are not barking. Or nosing my bare feet with their cold, moist snouts. Or peeing on the expensive carpeting because they have not been let out in the past 45 minutes. Or mostly, when they are under the care of their owners.