This past weekend, I had the pleasure of babysitting a friend’s King Charles Cavalier puppy. Lilli’s absolutely adorable, and I was SO excited to have her here. Her mom dropped her off on Thursday evening and would be picking her up sometime on Sunday. I’d initially planned to do some writing and to start decorating the house for Christmas, thinking my husband would be there to help with Lilli. But he ending up going out of town on business until Saturday evening, so I was on my own.
Let me start by saying that no writing took place, and I didn’t do any Christmas decorating, either. Somehow, I’d forgotten what it’s like to have a puppy around. She got into everything. And she put it all into her mouth. I must have pulled at least five forbidden items from her mouth, including a paperclip and part of a golf shoe cleat. I don’t even know how a golf shoe cleat came to be in the house.
By the end of the day, after Lilli had been here only six hours, I was wiped out and decided to go to sleep early. Her mom had told me that Lilli slept with her and that she loves to cuddle. Well, Lilli ended up sleeping on my pillow, wrapped around the top of my head. I kept moving her, but she kept coming back. I ended up getting less than three hours of sleep that first night. And I had a stiff neck from the way I had to stay crunched up, so that she wouldn’t be pushed into the headboard.
On Friday and Saturday, it was impossible to do anything, because she wanted to be picked up, or she wanted me to throw toys to her. If I was moving from room to room, she was literally under my feet. Thank God for our dog, Maddie, who played with Lilli much of the time. The only time I got her to rest was when I watched television for an hour. She was content to lie on the sofa next to me and sleep. Otherwise, she was in constant motion.
And she was funny as hell! She barked at her reflection in the fireplace glass. In our little office, she spotted some Beanie Babies on the floor, and she barked and charged at them, until she finally figured out that they weren’t alive. I laughed a LOT last weekend! She challenged my Amazon parrot to a fight by barking incessantly every time she saw him. I had to watch them, because he climbed down his cage and was hanging off the stand, trying to reach her. Like I said, I couldn’t take my eyes off her for even a minute.
And probably because she was in a new environment, she had accidents. I mean she really had accidents. By Saturday evening, she’d peed in five different rooms and had also pooped five times in four rooms. And I was taking her outside at least every two hours! But then, a few hours after my husband came home from his business trip, Lilli outdid herself.
I was folding towels in the bedroom, and I had Lilli sitting on the bed, so that I could keep an eye on her. As I looked up from my laundry task, I saw Lilli squat. Realizing that she was about to pee, I said, “Lilli, NO!” Well, that scared her, so she started squirming to get away from me, peeing as she moved. I ended up having to wash the sheets, mattress pad, a down blanket, a fleece blanket and a pillow. I couldn’t believe what had just happened.
We were finally able to go to bed at 3:00 a.m. All my husband said was, “I thought she was housebroken.” Hopefully, it’ll be years before he finds out that Lilli also chewed the molding on the bottom of an antique desk. (I colored it with one of those furniture fixing pens.)
I love Lilli, and her mom’s a good friend, but I think I’m going to hold off on babysitting her until she’s at least a year old. For one thing, we’re getting new carpeting soon – need I say more? And I’d rather wait ‘til Lilli gets past that high-maintenance puppy stage, so I can really enjoy her.
Photo by Dedi Sharabi
Title: Bojan
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dedish/4177023692/in/photostream/
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