My work as a professional pet-sitter provides me with an interesting insight into the lives of my clients. Not only my animal clients, but my human clients as well. The first thing I do with every customer is arrange an initial face-to-face meeting where I meet my potential employer, get acquainted with the pets and go over the financial and clerical details.
After that first meeting, if we agree to do business, I may never see the human members of the household again. After all, the nature of my work requires me to come into their home when they are absent and care for the animals. We communicate with one another through notes, emails, phone calls and text messages. Rarely are we in the same room at the same time. Nevertheless, over time, a relationship develops as I get to know my clients through the eyes of their pets.
For example, I care for a lovely little Yorkshire Terrier named Princess who is the furry child of an adoring retired couple. Princess has a personality to match her name. She is the ruler of all the lands within her domain. She barks out orders, demands attention and requires the highest quality of care at all times. Her behavior has taught me everything I need to know about her owners. They are loving and generous people, who lavish all their time and money on Princess. After all, she eats only the finest cuisine and wears nothing but the latest fashions. One day I noticed her coat needed to be combed out, but couldn't find the dog brush. I called her owner to ask where it was and she said, "Oh just get my hairbrush out of the bathroom. Princess is welcome to use it. After all, she is a people." After hanging up the phone I made the mistake of reminding Princess that she was, in fact, just a dog. Princess turned her back, marched off into her bedroom, and ignored me for the rest of the day.
Another of my favorite dogs to care for is a beautiful Cocker Spaniel named Sassy. Sassy's owner is an older gentleman who owned his own dry cleaning business for fifty years. He is the sort of surly, short-tempered, no nonsense kind of man who yells at kids to get off his lawn and waves his fist at drivers who speed down his quiet residential street. But all his crusty bluster flies out the window where Sassy is concerned. The list of instructions he writes out when he goes on vacation is no less than three pages long. Sassy has many "quirks" as he calls them. For example, every morning I must fill the bathtub to the brim with fresh water. He says it is the only way Sassy will drink. According to him, she would dry up like an empty husk without that tub of water. Also, Sassy is afraid of bowls. Her stinky, messy wet food has to be dumped directly on the linoleum in the kitchen or she will never eat her meals. Her favorite blanket to sleep on is his wife's most expensive angora sweater, and her preferred chew toy is one of his snake skin cowboy boots. Personally, I think Sassy would be fine eating and drinking out of dog bowls, playing with tennis balls, and sleeping on her fuzzy dog bed, but she knows deep down what pleases her owner. The best thing of all about Sassy is her taste in television. The only channel she likes to watch is HGTV. What a coincidence, me too! When I sit Sassy, she and I get along just fine.
My job has taught me a great deal about animals these last few years. I have developed an understanding and a connection with the cats and dogs I care for. But, even more interesting to me is all I've learned about the human animal. How vulnerable we really are, and how we expose our soft underbelly to our pets, leaning on them so much for the love and acceptance we crave. How we create an environment where we are indispensable to these creatures we adore. There is nothing better than the unconditional love we get from our pets. And the love we give in return. It reminds me of a bumper sticker I saw the other day. It said "I want to become the person my dog thinks I am." What an amazing place the world would be then.
