Adventures in Dogsitting

[Dreamstalker]

I'm dogsitting for the subject of my most recent post in the "Dear..." thread. Ten days to go and already I want it to be over with. The pooch has Inflammatory Bowel Disease. He's doing okay with diet and meds although will try to gas me out of the room on occasion, but I suspect there are a few things the owner didn't tell me (such as what is normal and not in terms of his behavior). It's also annoying having to basically eat standing up or somewhere he can't boost himself up to...he's pretty much always hungry, but absolutely cannot have anything but his special food (walks are also interesting; I have to keep his head up so he doesn't eat anything, but he's so low to the ground it's hard). If something does go bad, it would be difficult for me to get him to a vet (owner knows this). He's survived two years longer than he should have...I'm just hoping nothing goes pear-shaped before the owner gets home.

One 'trick' that she seemed especially proud of was training him to pee on the back porch. Which would be fine if she lived on the ground floor, but her apartment is on the third floor. Yup, the pee goes through the boards onto the porch below. And she can't figure out why her downstairs neighbor hates her guts.

[TheSHAD0W]

Ugh, that's bad. It's frowned upon nowadays but in this case I'd really recommend a muzzle for the dog when he's outside, to make sure he doesn't eat anything.

[Dreamstalker]

I might see if I can pick up a cheap muzzle just for the duration of this. I highly doubt the owner will ever use it herself; she neglected to get booties for the poor thing during the blizzard.

I now suspect he was sick/having a flareup before she left and she never told me or never noticed (hard to explain; he was 'off' for a few days but snapped out of it just when I decided to call the vet).

[April]

Ugh we're dog sitting too. A wonderful, elderly german shepherd. Who is apparently on a diet. They have her on only 1.5 cups of food a day, which does NOT seem like enough for a big dog. Also, they sent over some of her special food. But not enough to last 3 weeks. I was informed that I would need to buy some and they would reimburse me. Really?

I feel your dog sitting pain

[Dreamstalker]

1.5 cups for a shepherd? Unless there's a medical justification, that's not enough. If you do buy more food, I would email the owner first (may not require a reply, but you have proof you told them you had to buy more).

This person had me do it because she 'knew' she could pay me less than boarding at the vet, but she's either not fully aware of the tradeoffs or is setting me up (she always paid in full up front before the dog got sick...now if anything happens she would use that to screw me out of the rest). If I do this again I'm getting payment in full (matching vet rates if not higher) and a signed contract. I'm not particularly qualified to care for a sick animal long-term...nor do I need the added stress of worrying about the dog when I'm not there.

[Dreamstalker]

Owner got back on Wednesday, so I'm back home (holy cats am I ever glad that's over with).

...and the dog is now sick (low protein levels). He wasn't doing that well when she left to be honest. I have no idea what happened, save that he was on and off a hunger strike when she was away; if he was supposed to be getting a certain amount of protein per day, that probably tipped a delicate balance that I was unaware of. When I first noticed the lack of appetite and relayed this to her, her response was "oh he'll eat when he gets hungry". OK...he needs a certain caloric intake, won't eat his food but I'm not to feed him anything else to get him to eat. How is that supposed to work? His meds also needed to be adjusted--which sounds like it should have been done much sooner (like before she left).

Never again. It was highly irresponsible of her to leave a dog that sick with a (more or less) unqualified person for almost a month with no instructions.