Once upon a time, I offered to take care of a miniature poodle puppy for three weeks. That puppy is upon us. Here’s my day so far. It’s typical, at least for the house. Not so much for me, because Elvi’s out of town.
7:30 – Wake up and ask Child Two to take the puppy out of her crate (she sleeps in it) and take her outside so she can pee and poop.
7:30-8:00 – Make the kids’ breakfasts and lunches.
8:00 – Clean up fresh puppy feces from my office because the puppy prefers it as a toilet to the great outside.
8:30 – Take the two kids to their day camps. (Child One is at sleep-away camp.) Leash the puppy in our living room. She still eats things she shouldn’t, so we keep her restrained when no one’s home. Also, it lets Crash escape her attention, and may just prevent him from tearing her throat out. The puppy is the only thing on the planet he’s growled at more than once.
9:15 – Get back home and take the leash off the puppy.
10:30 – Take a shower while the puppy barks and whines outside my shower stall. She has a problem when there are no humans in sight.
11:15 – Take the puppy out to see if she will pee or poop. She does not. Leash the puppy in the living room and head out to a meeting that seems to have drummed up some business.
12:30 – Return home. Note that the puppy has peed all over the living room.
12:31 – Somehow restrain self from mopping up the pee with a recently throttled puppy.
12:35 – While cleaning up pee, discover that the puppy has pooped in the living room, too.
12:36 – Wonder if I have rage issues. The puppy senses that perhaps I do and runs away to hide.
12:50 – Finish cleaning the puppy bathroom living room.
12:51 – Using a second, non-peed-upon leash, take the puppy outside. All she does is lie down in the grass.
1:00 – Start a load of laundry that includes the peed-upon leash.
Five minutes after I post this – Back to some research, which demands I become intimately familiar with two American cities I’ve never visited. That’s not entirely true – I spent a few hours in the airport of one of them.
