Mrs. Fitzgerald Part Three: How Many Times?

This story is Part Three in a series. To read Part One CLICK HERE. 

“Would you like a shrimp cocktail?” said Mrs. Fitzgerald with a smile as she opened the front door.

            “No thanks,” I replied. I was in the middle of one of my unsuccessful attempts at being a vegetarian. I stepped into the house and watched Mrs. Fitzgerald disappear around the corner into the kitchen. She emerged holding a cracker with a shrimp on it. “See?” she said. “It’s cute, pink, and swims around in the sea.” Wondering what she thought I said, I took the hors douveres from her outstretched hand and popped it in my mouth. It was easier to eat the shrimp than to try and explain. As I chewed, I noticed that there were two other people in the dining room, sitting and talking with Mr. Fitzgerald who was wearing pajamas. His wearing bedclothes at home wasn’t strange, except for the fact that everyone else was dressed-up. Seeing my puzzlement, she took me to the side and explained quietly that her husband had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. They had notified relatives and friends so they could come and visit one last time.

            “I’m sorry,” I said, and felt lame as soon as the words came out of my mouth. What do you say to someone who is about to lose their husband of 60 years? I picked up the dog leashes, leashed up the girls, and headed out for the walk.

            The next few weeks were a flurry of activity. I didn’t know anyone had that many friends and relatives, let alone that many friends and relatives willing to fly in from out of state to say good-bye. After these visitors came legal advisors to help take care of business, followed by nurses looking for a hospice job. If the situation wasn’t bad enough, Kelly the dog had also been diagnosed with cancer. She had been coughing lately and tiring easily, symptoms we’d chalked up to kennel cough until x-rays revealed cancer in the lungs. She was going downhill and was reaching a point where she needed to be put to sleep.

            “I can’t bear it,” said Mrs. Fitzgerald. “Not with … this,” gesturing with a bony hand towards the bedroom where her husband now spent most of the day. There were tears in her eyes. “I’d just as soon have them do the surgery, and if she dies on the table…”

            “You don’t want to do that to her,” I said gently. Having gone through lung cancer with my own dog just a year before, I knew all about it. “The cancer is all over her lungs and there’s no way to remove it. It wouldn’t be humane. She needs to be put to sleep.” Looking at the sad face of the old woman before me, I added, “I’ll take her.” She nodded and dabbed her eyes, moving towards the bedroom as she heard her husband calling. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said.

            She rang me up the next morning to say that the appointment had been made. “You can walk Maggie afterwards,” she said. When I arrived, she looked like she’d been crying a lot. She stroked Kelly’s soft head and looked into the old, cloudy, adoring eyes with her own. “Kelly is my 40th Springer Spaniel,” she said not looking up.

            “Really?” I was 25 at the time and the concept of living long enough to own 40 dogs was foreign to me.

            “Yes!” she said, as if I actually didn’t believe her. “The last two, before these girls, were Susie and May.” With that she walked into the dining room, opened a cabinet, and started rummaging around a pile of what looked like scrap books. She selected one, sat down on the couch, and opened it. The vet appointment was in 20 minutes, but I said nothing, put the leash down, and sat beside her. The book was stuffed with photos, mostly of dogs and puppies. “Look at this,” she handed me an old black-and white photo of Springer puppies in a wire pen. “14 in that litter! Can you believe it? Their mama was very tired.” I smiled and nodded, looking appreciatively at the photo. She flipped through a few more pages before finding what she was looking for, a photo of two smiling dog-faces, those of Susie and May. This was a more recent photo so was in color. The background looked like the room we were sitting in.

            “Aww, look at them,” I said, wondering how so many dogs of the same breed could look completely different. As she closed the book and stood up, another, smaller, photo fell out. She didn’t see it fall, so I bent down and picked it up. It was a black and white photo of a handsome young couple. Their smiles were genuine, in fact they almost appeared to be laughing. I assumed it was Mr. and Mrs. Fitzgerald in their younger days. “Is this you?” I asked as I handed it to her.

            She looked at the picture and squinted her eyes, as if she had expected to see something else. “My mother,” she said. “I never knew her. She died when I was a baby.”

            Just like me, I thought.

            “My father,” she pointed to the dapper man in the photo. “He died when I was eight.”

            At least I still have him, I thought. Looking at the clock, I realized I had five minutes to get to the vet appointment. I was sure they’d be patient, as the Fitzgeralds were frequent and well-paying clients, but I didn’t want to push it. I clipped the leash on Kelly.

            “Stay with her,” she said as I went out the door, “and make sure they give her a tranquilizer.”

            “I will.”

            At the vet’s office, I stroked Kelly’s face and looked into her eyes as she was given the injection. She slumped to the table, the benevolent expression on her face never changing. I continued to stroke her even after she was gone, lost in my thoughts. The vet, who didn’t have the greatest bedside manner, said, “Um, we need to put the body away now so we can get ready for the next client.” I nodded and left, forgiving him for wanting to get on with his day.

            As I drove back to the house to walk Maggie, I was lost in thought. By the time you’re old, I wondered, how many times do you have to say good-bye?

My Best Friend, Part Two.

“Two dogs just came in and there's nowhere to put them.”

I didn't look up from my computer. I knew by the loud voice and looming presence in my doorway that it was kennel attendant Joel, who never stopped complaining about how “full” the shelter was. I wondered then, as I would for the rest of my career in animal sheltering, why people who don't like cleaning kennels apply for jobs cleaning kennels.

“The dogs going to surgery tomorrow can move to the barn kennels.” The “barn” kennels were overflow chain link kennels in the parking lot, not great for long-term housing but good enough for those about to go home, or somewhere, soon.

I could feel Joel frowning even though I still didn't look up. The staff didn't like putting dogs in the overflow kennels because they were a pain to clean, but the alternative was putting multiple dogs who don't know each other together in the regular kennels. This was successful more often than not, but when not, had led to some serious injuries and even deaths. Realizing the conversation was over, Joel huffed and walked away. Minutes later, animal control officer Brooks stood in the same spot.

“Morning,” she said. “I just picked up two dogs in a guy's chicken coop. He witnessed one of the dogs actually killing the chickens, but the other dog was just standing there, so he doesn't think that one did any killing. Here's the kennel cards.”

“Thanks,” I said as she handed me the cards. “Any owner info?”

“No, no collars, no chips. The chicken owner says he never saw them before.”

“Thanks. How's your day going?” I asked as I thought of how much I respected Officer Brooks. She was a hard working and truly caring person. The previous summer, when the overcrowded conditions led to an outbreak of ringworm in the cat room, she took 38 shelter cats into her own home and treated them for months until they were healthy, then placed them through several rescue groups because of course by the time they were well every cage in the shelter was full and there was “nowhere to put them.” After a short chat, Brooks headed back to her truck to roll out on the next call and I went back to my email.

A while later, I  felt a little dizzy and realized I needed to eat. Logging off my desktop computer, I stood up and stretched, feeling the blood rush to my head and seeing little spots dance all over the room. I headed for the break room where I had a plate of dinner leftovers waiting to be eaten for lunch. Walking sluggishly through the swinging double doors and down the long aisle of dog kennels, I glanced around, smiled and said hi to the dogs as I always did, extending a hand for those who wanted to sniff or lick. Little Chihuahua-Terriers danced on their hind legs, thrusting their black button noses through the bars of their kennels towards me. An old yellow Lab didn't rise from her bed but looked up with a benevolent white face and thumped her tail on the floor, and in the kennel beside her, two dogs stood and looked around as if they were confused … a white Husky mix and a big  black German Shepherd.

My Best Friend, Part One

I stretched and groaned as I surveyed the pile of completed paperwork stacked on the two chairs next to my desk. It had taken at least an hour to pull together what was needed for the weekly trip to the spay and neuter clinic: kennel cards, medical records, microchips. Do all the animals have vaccinations? Are they recorded in the computer? Do all the 15-digit microchip numbers match with the correct animals? It was the kind of detail work that I least favored, but had to do, and as I did it, I also had to swallow my frustration. Year after year, I presented reports to the department showing that having a vet on premises one or two days a week was inadequate, and year after year my request for more hours was denied based on “lack of evidence.” When the pool of animals being sent home unaltered reached the hundreds and adopters started calling to complain about the three-month wait for a spay/neuter appointment, I was then told that I could no longer release animals from the shelter until the surgery was done. With only 20 dog kennels and one small cat room, conditions got even more overcrowded than they were before, and now adopters were complaining about having to wait a week or more to pick up their adopted pet, which by now was sick with kennel cough or upper respiratory infection thanks to the longer stay in the shelter. When I put out a call for help to our nonprofit partners, they responded by offering to do as many surgeries as they could for us on one day a week at cost. This was a godsend, but it was also a lot of work to prepare the paperwork and transport the animals to and from the clinic which was 45 minutes away from our shelter.

Turning away from the pile and back to my computer, I opened the internet browser and went to Craigslist. I tried to check the Lost and Found and Pets sections at least a few times a week, as people would often post there but not come to our shelter. We had made several reunions of pet and owner thanks to these listings, and I was always hoping for more. I scrolled down, down, down, not seeing anything familiar in the text or photos. I clicked onto the second page of listings and noticed that one described a missing dog in our jurisdiction. I clicked on the link and suddenly the room spun.

“I am missing my dog King. I just returned from a trip out of the country and found out that he escaped from my Father-in-Law's property. He is a male, five years old. I miss him very much and will do anything to find out where he is. He's my best friend.”

I looked into the eyes of the dog in the attached photo, a big black German Shepherd with a great smiling mouth and big pointy ears, and felt a wave of nausea come over me. I swallowed and pushed my chair back from the computer screen. I knew exactly where King was.

Christmas at the Emergency Vet

Something went wrong every Christmas.

            As a pet sitter, I was used to not celebrating holidays; after all, that is our busiest work season. With everyone out of town visiting family between December and January, the need for pet care is so great that I was usually booked solid by September. Normally, I did four-eight pet sitting visits a day; during the holidays, it was more like 10-14. The days were a flurry of dog walking, cat box scooping, medication giving, and food bowl filling, with little to no margin for error; still, every year something happened to send my well-oiled machine grinding to a halt. This year, it was a cat called Snowball.

            Snowball was a beautiful, pure white male cat. The owners had found him as a kitten several years earlier, and raised him into a sleek, friendly creature. Because he was all white and at great risk for sunburn-induced skin cancer, he was kept 100% indoors; despite that, the owners were having some flea problems. They lived in a wooded area with no shortage of flea-carrying critters like raccoons and rabbits, and the parasites seemed to be marching in a line into their home. At this time, topical flea products like Advantage and Frontline were new, and many people weren’t using them yet. Instead, this family was using a flea collar on their cat. I’ve never been a fan of cat collars, since cats seem to either remove them immediately or get them hung up on something while trying to remove them. I especially disliked flea-repellant ones, since they were soaked in chemicals which, despite their toxicity, did nothing to repel fleas.

            So it was that I trudged up the stairs to the front door of Snowball’s house and put the key in the lock. It had been a busy but good day; I had already completed eight visits and my car was filled with cards, gifts, and sweets from clients. I was looking forward to finishing a little early, going home and relaxing. “Hi Snowball, how are-“ I was cut short by the sight of his face as I opened the front door. His white head was swollen to the size of a softball. His lower jaw seemed to be sticking out. With a sickening feeling in my stomach, I realized what had happened: he had been grooming himself, and when he licked his neck and chest area, his jaw hooked around the flea collar and was stuck. I immediately dropped to my knees and, with some difficulty, removed the collar. Snowball opened and closed his mouth again and again and swallowed. How long had he been like this? Did he ingest the flea-repelling poison? It was clear he had to go to the emergency hospital. Ditching my ideas of a relaxing evening at home, I picked up the phone and called the emergency to let them know I was on my way.

            Sitting in the emergency hospital waiting room, I entertained myself by guessing the thoughts of the other people in the lobby. That one looks worried, that one is bored, that one is angry and frustrated at having to wait so long. Since all other local vets are closed on Christmas Day, the emergency was even more of a crowded nightmare than usual. A wait of two hours was expected if your pet was not at death’s door; still, there were always loud complaints about the wait, and why one animal was seen before the other. At this moment, the door flew open and a hysterical woman ran in.”Please help!” she said, “My dog has been attacked!” The hospital staff, who probably dealt with this sort of scene every day, remained calm and asked what happened. The woman explained that she owned a four-month-old puppy, and she was pet sitting for her friend’s adult dog. She had fed the dogs together in the same room, and when the puppy toddled over to the adult’s bowl to help herself, she was attacked. When asked what kind of dog attacked hers, she replied, “Pit bull.” The two techs at the desk looked at each other, them immediately grabbed blankets and ran outside to the woman’s car to help her bring the puppy in. I only saw the poor thing for a few seconds, but that was enough. She was a fawn pit bull, or at least I could see spots of fawn where she wasn’t covered in blood. There were puncture wounds everywhere. Her head was partially crushed. My stomach turned and my eyes teared up as I thought of those scenes in war movies where they run by with the man on a gurney. The pup was rushed into the back, and the room fell silent. No one complained. The man who had been pacing sat down. The puppy’s owner looked around at us with frantic eyes. “It’s not my fault,” she kept saying, as if we were judging her. “I didn’t know that would happen, I didn’t know!” People started reassuring her, saying things like, “It’s okay, you didn’t know, these things happen.”I got comfortable in my chair, figuring the poor pup would increase my wait at least another hour, but I was wrong. After ten minutes the techs called the woman into the back, and when I heard a great shriek I knew they were telling her that her dog was already dead.

            It was dark when I returned Snowball to his home. He was looking much better already; the swelling had started to go down as soon as I had removed the collar. I placed the vet bill and a color flyer for Advantage flea control on the dining table, stroked his white head, and headed out to finish my day.

            When his owners Greg and Sue returned, I met with them and explained what happened. I told them they would have to pay an extra visit charge for the transport to the vet which, amazingly, some people were reluctant to pay. Sue pulled out her check book and said, “How much was that?”

“Twenty dollars,” I said. She smiled as she handed me the check, and when I looked at it, it said $100!

“I can’t tell you how much we appreciate your taking such good care of him, especially on a holiday when you’d rather be doing other things.”

Ghost Mirror

            Dorothy and I had known each other for ten years. We met at the Peninsula Humane Society in the 1990’s when I was working in customer service and she was working as a dispatcher. When I left to start my pet sitting business, we stayed in touch, and two years later I hired her as a part-time sitter. Being petite and not very strong, she was not comfortable walking dogs, but she was great with the cats. She helped me out on weekends and on her days off, and we often talked on the phone and met for lunch.

            Dorothy was one of those amazing people who, by the age of 25, had saved enough money to buy her own condo. During the booming economy of the mid-90’s, she was able to sell it for more than twice what she bought it for and move up to a cute house in San Mateo. She wanted to rent out her extra bedroom, and invited me to move in with her. At the time, I was still living with Bill, so I declined, but when we broke up a year later, she was the first one I called.

            “Still got that room for rent?”

            “Yeah, you want it?”

            “How soon can I come down?”

            She laughed. “How about next week?”

            A few days later, we were sitting in Sushi Sam’s, a very popular place in downtown San Mateo, enjoying dinner and discussing my moving in. Laughing, I popped another California roll into my mouth. “How is it,” I asked as I chewed, “That you’re Chinese, but I’m the one eating with chopsticks?”

            Making a mess of her roll while attempting to spear it onto the end of a fork, Dorothy replied, “I don’t know, we just never used them.”

            Finally getting the roll into her mouth and eaten, Dorothy continued, “My parents wanted us to be totally American. They thought we wouldn’t get ahead if we acted Chinese. They only allowed us to speak English.”

            What a shame, I thought. This phenomenon is not uncommon in immigrant populations. Fearing that their children will experience the same prejudice and lack of opportunity that they did in the U.S., parents suppress their ethnicity in an attempt to make their families “totally American.” Culture and history become something to be ashamed of and are lost, sometimes never to be regained. As Dorothy could attest to, learning Cantonese as an adult – as she attempted to do at the community college – is damn near impossible.

            Finishing our dinner, we agreed on how much I would pay for the room and when I would move in. I left feeling a great sense of relief.

            “Okay, so we’ll meet tomorrow at 3 o’clock? Great, see you then!” I hung up the phone and jotted some notes on a piece of paper. I was sitting at Dorothy’s kitchen table clearing out my business voicemail while she sat in the living room watching TV. She was so petite that when she sat on the huge pink couch she disappeared into it. Her eyes were glued to the screen as they had been for several hours. She was hooked on the soap opera Days of Our Lives, and since she worked when the program was aired, and taped it during the week and watched them all, like a marathon, on the weekend.

            Looking up at her, I said, “How do you feel about a Cockatiel?” There was a delay as she peeled her eyes from the screen and swallowed the potato chip she’d just put in her mouth. “Do I have to let it out of the cage?”

            “No, just clean and feed through the cage. Once a day.”

            She considered for a moment, ate another chip. “Yeah, I can do that. Initial meeting is tomorrow?”

            “Mm-hm,” I nodded, looking again at my notes and smiling, “But there’s just one thing.”

            “What’s that?”

            “Don’t wear stripes.”

              Driving to the new client’s house, I wondered at the idiosyncrasies of people, and of their animals. According to Tweety the Cockatiel’s owner, he was a friendly bird as long as you weren’t wearing stripes. Evidently the wearing of such a pattern would cause him to respond very aggressively. Since I’d never worn stripes in my life, there was no danger of that occurring. Glancing at my notes, I made a left turn, then a right onto the cul-de-sac where Tweety resided. June was the name of the lady I was supposed to meet. Lucia, the owner, would be at work so her partner/roommate June would give me all the info and the key.

              “Hi! It’s the pet sitter!” I could hear someone walking around inside, and a bird chirping, but no one was answering the door. I heard a loud voice talking inside, to whom I wasn’t sure. “Hello?” I called out again, and finally the footsteps approached the door and it was opened. Before me stood a rather large woman with short-cropped dark hair, wearing what was either a large T-shirt or a small nightgown and yellow underpants. Her big white legs stuck out from under the shirt, and since she had no bra on her large breasts hung down to her waist. I was trying to be polite but it was impossible not to stare. Fortunately she didn’t notice; in fact, she just turned around, walked back into the house, and resumed talking to the bird.

            “Tweety, here’s your friend! This is your friend, Tweety! Here she is!” Her voice was loud and kind of strange, as if she was hearing-impaired. Tweety, a mostly-white bird with orange cheeks and a yellow head, raised the feathers on his crown and eyed me suspiciously. Birds, I had learned from my time pet sitting, tend to like the familiar and to distrust strangers. I had a few over the years who warmed up to me, even some of the big guys like Cockatoos and Amazons, but overall I left them alone unless they clearly wanted to be touched.

              Without looking at me, June launched into the care instructions. Bird seed, water, newspapers to line the cage... “Please take in the mail,” she said, pulling a small key out of a silver-plated decorative tea pot and heading for the door. I watched in amazement – and followed her, somewhat embarrassed – as she marched right out the door in her underpants and bare feet across the parking area to the group mail box for the town home community. She showed me their box and how to open it, then walked back in and returned the key to the tea pot. Glancing over my shoulder, I wondered if anyone saw her walking around like that. Oh well, I thought, she probably does it all the time.

            “Put the mail here.” She placed today’s mail on top of a rather large stack on the dining table. “And remember, don’t wear stripes!”

              “Underpants, and a T-shirt?” Dorothy couldn’t stop giggling. “For real?”

            “Yes, for real, in living color!” We laughed again.

            “Oh, um, would you mind…” Dorothy started, looking at the floor. It was her way of speaking when she needed a favor.

            “What?” I asked.

            “Could you fix the mirror? It’s turned around again.”

            “Sure.” I got up and went out the front door to where the ghost mirror was hanging. It was a windy Spring and a few good gusts would flip the thing around so that the mirror part was facing the wall instead of the street. For trying to make her a white-bread American, Dorothy’s parents had passed along a whole lot of Chinese superstitions; among other things, she believed in ghosts, signs, and the zodiac. The ghost mirror, an octagonal piece of wood with symbols painted in each of the eight sections and a round convex mirror in the middle, is an important tool for repelling bad spirits. Good spirits, who may want to help you, can enter the home freely, but those with bad intentions will look in the mirror and be bounced back by their own reflection. At the time I thought it was silly, but later, when my life got more difficult, I found myself embracing the wisdom and buying one for myself.

            The visits with Tweety went smoothly. Dorothy reported that she found everything okay and that the little bird seemed well. I did the visit on the last day, as Dorothy had to work at her other job. I walked in the front door and chuckled at the mental image of June in her unusual outfit. I approached Tweety’s cage and was surprised to see him wide-eyed and agitated. His cage was reasonably clean, and his food and water dishes were full, so I had no reason to believe that Dorothy hadn’t properly cared for him, or that anything else was wrong. Maybe he was just reacting to me as a stranger, since he hadn’t seen me since the initial visit. He eyed me suspiciously as I change the newspaper at the bottom of his cage, then removed his food and water dishes, refilled and replaced them. Shaking my head, I retrieved the mail box key from the silver tea pot and walked outside to get the mail. When I walked back in, I was startled by the sight of a person standing in the living room! Almost dropping the mail, I looked up and saw a small Hispanic woman holding a broom and dust pan. Oh yeah, Cecilia, the house keeper, I remembered. She comes on Fridays. Seeing me, she smiled and raised her hand. Tweety, already big-eyed, launched himself at her side of the cage and screeched like a banshee.

            “Hola!” said the Cecilia. “Pajaro loco, eh?” Crazy bird!

            Getting a closer look at the petite lady, I suddenly noticed what she was wearing. Old Navy was having a sale that week – I’d seen their Spring collection just the previous day, when I was shopping for pants. Evidently Cecilia had been to the same sale, and had purchased the v-neck t-shirt completely covered in dark pink and white stripes. 

Mrs. Fitzgerald Part Two: Taking the Girls to Arby's

This story is part two in a series. Read Part One here.

Mrs. Fitzgerald loved catalog shopping.

She must have received 100 different catalogs, everything from ladies' clothes to whimsical pet gifts to fancy candies. I could see the mail man groaning as he approached her house each day with a mountain of parcels and even more catalogs. Every day was like Christmas as she opened each box and inspected its contents, then just as often decided she didn't like the items or they were the wrong size, and sent them back.

“My niece Mary will love this,” she said to me, holding up a pretty stationary set with parchment-looking paper and old fashioned pen.

“Is it her birthday?” I asked, admiring the items.

“No, this is for Christmas.”

It was March, never too soon to start shopping for Christmas. By the time the actual day arrived, she’d have an enormous stockpile of gifts and a ledger with a long list of who received what that would baffle an accountant. After walking the dogs, I helped her stash away the items in a cabinet then made for the door.

“You hungry?” she asked as my hand touched the door knob. Of course I was hungry, so I nodded. She smiled. “Let’s take the girls down to Arby’s.” At the word “Arby’s,” the dogs faces lit up and they started getting excited. Maggie bounced up and down like a spring and Kelly rubbed against Mrs. Fitzgerald’s legs like a cat. “I’ll just get my purse,” she said. 15 minutes later she had a purse, matching shoes and hat, and the huge old green Buick was pulled out of its place in the garage. As it turned out, Arby’s was one of her favorite places to go, and the dogs were always taken along for the ride and given a half sandwich each. I sat in the passenger seat and had to laugh as they went back and forth, back and forth, in the back seat. They’d look out one window, then urgently have to look out the other window, and this went on for the duration of the ride. We were driving none too swiftly, so more than once an angry young person in a sporty car would ride our tail, honk, then finally pass.

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“I’ll have two barbecue sandwiches and a large fries.”

The man working behind the Arby’s counter gave Mrs. Fitzgerald a blank look and pointed to something in front of the cash register. Thinking he hadn’t heard her, she repeated her order much louder, "I say I'll have two barbecue sandwiches and a large fried!" but she got the same response. “What’s wrong with this dummy?” she said, just as loudly, to me. I looked down and realized that, since the last time she’d been here, the restaurant had installed a touch-screen ordering system. It appeared that you had to push the pictures of the items you wanted, and the guy behind the counter was just there to take your money.

“Here,” I said, “You push what you want to order on this screen.” I pointed to the image of the barbecue sandwich.

Her face was all confusion, and annoyance. “But I told him what I wanted. What’s the problem?” she asked me. Seeing the line of grumbling people growing behind us, I quickly selected our items on the touch-screen menu and told her the total amount due. She handed the attendant the cash and wondered how I knew the price. I showed her on the screen and she shook her head. As we walked out of the restaurant with our bag of goodies, a few customers looked askance as she said, “I swear, the quality of people working in these places today!”

To read Part Three of this story CLICK HERE.

Dog Catching

Pet sitters, whether they know it or not, are defacto dog catchers. Our experience enables us to safely catch loose dogs, and our already trashed cars and pickups are ideal for their transport. After a few years I lost track of how many dogs I'd safely delivered. Some had ID tags with addresses; in these cases I simply brought them home. Some had only phone numbers, which I called then often waited for the owners to pick them up. If they had a collar only, or nothing at all, I took them to the humane society where they would be scanned for a microchip ID. Sometimes the dogs just came to me, like the time I opened the door of my car right outside my San Mateo apartment, stepped away for a moment, then got in to find a Rottweiler sitting in the passenger seat.

In one of the most amusing cases, I assisted the police in rounding up two dogs. I was driving down Ralston Avenue in Belmont sipping my morning coffee when I spotted four officers running in four different directions, holding leashes. Two large dogs, an Akita and a black Lab, were running in traffic and doing a good job of avoiding the officers. Noting the general direction in which they were traveling, I drove past them and pulled over. I got out of my truck, opened the back -- in my experience many dogs would simply jump in -- and grabbed two leashes. The Akita was the first to arrive; with lolling tongue, the big brindle ran right up to me and it was easy to put on the leash. The Lab wasn't entirely sure of me, but he saw that I had his buddy, so he submitted to the leash. I waited a few minutes for the tired officers to catch up, then handed them the dogs when they did. I got kind of annoyed while they talked amongst themselves and ignored me, so I said, "Can I have my leashes back?"

"Oh, these are not your dogs?" they replied.

"No," I said, "It just looked like you guys needed a little help!"

I seldom got any thanks, in fact many people said not a word as they reclaimed their dogs who had narrowly escaped death in traffic. Some people, embarrassed perhaps, would say that their dog was stupid for always getting out, the dumb mutt. There was one owner, however, who gave me a thanks I won't forget.

The Changs didn't have a dog, so I was quite surprised to hear growling as I approached the door of their Woodside home. I was scheduled to take care of their two indoor cats, and I began to wonder if they'd acquired a dog and not told me (this did sometimes happen). I paused for a moment to take out my cell phone and check voicemail ... no new messages. Another step forward, and the growling resumed. I looked around, confused, and spotted a very frightened-looking yellow dog about the size of a coyote cowering behind a large decorative pot. Ah, another lost soul. I wasn't about to get too close, but neither could I leave the poor creature out to starve or to be hit by a car on Sand Hill Road, where speeds often exceeded 60mph. I remembered the days when Rusty would help me round up lost dogs; I'd let him out of the truck, he'd go and make friends with the strange dog, then jump back in the truck, usually followed by his new friend. I wondered if my grumpy three-legged mutt Cassie, who happened to be riding along with me that day, would be willing to do the same. I let her out of the truck and she didn’t disappoint; coaxing the lost dog out from behind the pot and sniffing her curiously; she kept her distracted long enough for me to slip a large noose around her neck. Realizing that she was trapped, the yellow dog struggled for a second, then gave up. I spoke softly to her and walked to my truck, encouraging her to jump in, which she did. She was less nervous now, and I was able to locate ID tags on the furry neck. I dialed one of the numbers, and a woman answered. "Hi," I said, "Are you missing a dog?"

She gasped, then said, "Yes, it's my son's dog! Please give me your number, I'll have him call you right away."

I gave her my cell number, and minutes later I was on the line with an excited young man who said he would come right out. A small truck was soon coming up the long driveway, and the man jumped out of it as soon as he stopped. "Is this your dog?" I asked.

"Yes," he replied, "that's my ... that's my ..." then at this moment he flung his arms around the yellow neck and burst into tears. His face turned all red and he sobbed as the dog's tail wagged. When he was able to breathe again, he thanked me over and over, saying that the dog, Ginny, had become spooked and gone missing during a hike in the woods over the weekend. Since it was now Wednesday, that meant that Ginny had been missing for three days, and they were beginning to think she was dead. "She's shy," he explained, "No one else can handle her except me and my family. We knew she wouldn't approach anyone. I don't know how you got her. Thank you." I watched with a smile and patted Cassie's head as the truck drove away, a wagging yellow tail just visible through the back window.

Mrs.Fitzgerald Part One: Just Whistle

The summer sun beat down on me as I drove up the winding road to my new client's home. It was in a wealthy part of Menlo Park, and I marveled at the beauty: the streets were lined with different trees, some with colored leaves and others with flowers. The scene was dominated by oaks which seemed to have sprouted up in every front and back yard many years ago. The yards that hadn't been recently raked were showered with acorns. I drove with one hand on the wheel, the other holding a bagel. I was so often busy hustling from one visit to the other that many meals were eaten in the car, and this lunch was no exception. Popping the last bit in my mouth and washing it down with Snapple, I turned onto the client's street and parked in front of the house.

“This must be a really old lady,” I thought to myself as I gathered up my paperwork. She had an old-lady sounding voice on the phone, and she introduced herself as Mrs. John Fitzgerald (No one born on this side of 1930 goes by their husband's name). My suspicions were borne out when the door opened and there stood a slender elderly lady. Her hair was as red as mine, dyed but clearly done by a professional. Her eyes had a witty Irish sparkle and they disappeared when she smiled, just like mine. She was wearing a printed house dress and a bathrobe, but somehow she radiated elegance even in that outfit. I stared at her face perhaps a moment too long, as I saw the scar from what I later learned was one of several disfiguring cancer surgeries. Standing next to her was her husband, similarly attired and smiling. It was past noon and I felt a sudden envy for retired people.

“Hi, come in,” she said. I stepped into the house and was immediately accosted by two Springer Spaniels with their tail stumps wagging. I crouched down to meet them and they pushed their heads under my hands. “This is Maggie and this is Kelly,” she said, touching the head of each dog. Despite the fact that they were sisters, they looked nothing alike; Maggie was short and stout while Kelly was tall and long. Maggie was active and bouncy while Kelly seemed more sweet and wanted to lean on me. I pet them both and smelled their breath and let them lick me.

Mrs. Fitzgerald, as she preferred to be addressed, showed me around the house. She walked slowly and with a shuffle, and I followed behind her like a puppy, marveling at the amount of furniture, art, clothes, and other stuff in the house. There was a statue of a giraffe next to a Southwest-looking colorful coyote. There were couches and chairs of all shapes and sizes, glass cabinets jam-packed with knickknacks, a giant fish bowl full of match books from different restaurants. There was a painting of cows in a field next to what looked like a photo of African trees.
“These people must have lived here for 40 years!” I thought, and as it turns out I was just about right. I wondered when we got to the yard and I saw that the gate was not only wide open, it was tied open.

“Do you leave this open?” I asked.

“We always leave the gate open,” she replied. “After the fire, I got to worrying that the dogs would be trapped.”

“What if they run off?” I asked, still not too sure about this. I never got around to asking about the fire.

“They won't go far,” she assured me, “But if they do...”she started back into the house, which took a while. I followed slowly behind, and narrowed my eyes as she fished around in a drawer and came up with a red and white plastic whistle. She slowly raised it to her lips and blew, and a shrill sound came out. Both dogs came running and jumped around her feet. “You keep this one,” she said, pushing the saliva-covered whistle into my hands before I could protest. “We'll see you on Tuesday then!” she announced, and all I could do was nod as I made my way out the door.

After a month of walking Kelly and Maggie, I was into the groove. They were nice dogs who always gave me a hero's welcome when I arrived, and they were very well behaved on the walk.

“Got a minute?” Mrs. Fitzgerald asked as I stepped into the house and unclipped the leashes from Maggie and Kelly's collars. The dogs, satisfied after their walk, immediately rolled around on the carpet, grunting and groaning, then followed me and Mrs. Fitzgerald into the back bedroom. She slowly opened a sliding closet door to reveal an astounding amount of clothing and boxes. She pointed to the upper shelf in the closet and said, “I think they're in there.” Not asking what was in there, I stood on my tiptoes and got a grip on a white shirt box.

“This one?” I asked. She didn't answer, so I pulled the box down and handed it to her. She opened it to reveal several colorful scarves, then shook her head.

“Maybe it's that other one - there,” she said, pointing again. I pulled down a very similar box and it fell to the floor, popping open and spilling its contents. “That's it, thank you.” I picked it up and handed it – or them – to her. In the box were several ancient brown extension cords. They were frayed and only had two prongs on the end.

I frowned and said, “These are no good.”

She frowned back at me and lifted one eyebrow. “Last time I used them they worked fine.”

“But,” I tried to explain, “They don't make them like this any more,” pointing to the two prongs, “They aren't safe.”

At this moment, the front door opened and in walked Mr. Fitzgerald with a sheepish look on his face and two filled paper grocery sacks in his arms. “He's not on my good list,” she said with a grin. “Drove all the way to the store without the grocery list. Had to come all the way back to get it.” Realizing I was getting nowhere on the extension cord subject, I headed for the door, but she stopped me with a soft, “Wait just a minute.” She shuffled into the kitchen and I heard the bags rustling, so I assumed she was inspecting the grocery purchases. I heard the refrigerator open and close, and she came walking back into the living room holding a box.

“Oh no,” I thought, “More old food.” Like many people of her generation, despite the fact that she was obviously wealthy, she never threw anything away. Each week she had something for me: cookies, crackers, chocolates, all way past expiration. I didn't want to be rude, so I always thanked her and took them, then threw them away in the trash can down the street by the little park. “Oh, thank you!” I said as she handed me a half-empty box of expired chocolate donettes.

Starting up my truck and driving down the street, I realized I'd spent an extra half hour at the Fitzgeralds', as was becoming usual. My mind was wandering as I drove and I missed the trash can and got on the freeway. My stomach growled and I knew I wouldn't have time to stop for lunch. “Oh well,” I thought, “These things last forever,” as I popped a donette into my mouth.

To read part two of this story CLICK HERE.

A New Job, Part Three

This story is part three in a series. Read PART ONE and PART TWO here.

I held the phone bill closer to my face and read it again, in disbelief. $300? How on earth did we do that?

Two months after accepting the pet sitting job in San Francisco, I moved in with my boss, Krystal. Despite my reservations about her quirky personality, I jumped at the opportunity to live in a neat old house that was pet-friendly and conveniently located for both work and entertainment; besides, she said she was planning on leaving soon and moving in to a loft where she could have a nice office and living quarters together. She believed that her boyfriend Allesandro, who was likely to ask her to marry him any day, would be joining her. From my point of view, Allesandro only invited her over to his apartment for sex, then had her leave. He never came to her/our place, and never took her out for dinner or anything else. Today we’d call this kind of relationship a booty call – I don’t know what the term was in the 90’s. How, then, was she so certain that marriage was on the horizon? The Psychic Hotline.

976 phone numbers had a brief but profitable history in the pre-internet 80’s and 90’s. Offering everything from phone sex to financial advice, they were heavily advertised on TV and in the newspaper and caused people to run up some astounding phone bills. Charging as much as $3 a minute, operators of these 976 numbers did their best to keep callers on the line as long as possible and to encourage them to call back frequently. So it was that Krystal called the Psychic Hotline almost every day. Since the walls of our bedrooms were paper-thin, I could hear every word she said on the phone; if that wasn’t bad enough, she’d recount the entire conversation as soon as she saw me. She really believed that these people were real psychics and worse, that they were her friends. I realized after a while that they were skilled conversationalists and counselors of sorts, making statements that could apply to anyone like, “I sense that you have an unresolved issue with your family,” then listening and responding carefully as the caller gushed information.

“$300?” I said to Krystal when she got home. “Seriously, give me twenty bucks and I’ll tell you the same things.”

She gave me a look that went from blank to hurt. “They’re really psychic,” she said, “They know a lot about me and what they say really happens.”

“Well, it was going to happen anyway, so how does it help you, knowing these things?” But it was no use. She’d argue tooth and nail on the validity of the psychics, and there was no swaying her. I felt bad for her wasting her money like that, and I also felt concern for the fact that my paycheck and the phone bill were being funded by the same account. Luckily, we had enough business to cover it all.

The following week, I came home from a morning of pet sitting visits and, as I put on a pot of coffee, I noticed a big box full of stuff in the kitchen. I saw what appeared to be leather gloves sticking out of the top of the box, and as I waited for the coffee to brew I peeked further in. At this moment, Krystal came down from her bedroom and walked into the kitchen. “Did you see our new earthquake supplies?” she asked with an excited look on her face.
“Is that what they are?” I replied.

“Yeah, look,” she said, pulling the box to the middle of the floor and extracting the contents. Her two little terriers had followed her into the kitchen, and they were watching with interest. As she took each plastic-wrapped item and placed it on the floor, they sniffed it. “These,” she said, holding up the leather gloves, “Are for picking up broken glass, and this,” picking up a small plastic box, “will detect leaking gas.”

I thought to myself that if my home was littered with broken glass and leaking gas, I’d probably just leave, but I said nothing. “How much was that?” I asked.

“Only $250, but the batteries for the flashlights were extra.”

Good lord, I thought, $250 for a bunch of junk we don’t need. But that wasn’t all. She went on to explain that she hadn’t actually paid for our earthquake preparedness kit, she had charged it on her new credit card which was now up to the limit.

“Want coffee?” I asked as I poured myself a cup and sat down at the little wooden table in the corner of the small kitchen. The smell of coffee permeated the room. I poured my usual obscene amount of sugar and small amount of creamer into the cup, then looked up to see her crinkling her nose in disgust.

“Coffee isn’t good for you, you know. It really doesn’t give you energy.” She went on to give me a lecture about healthy eating and drinking habits – which she, by the way, didn’t practice – and to talk at length about the homeopathic remedies she took and gave to her dogs. “I’m so sensitive I can’t even eat ginger. In fact, a client gave me a box of ginger snaps, do you want them?”

I took the box, pulled out a cookie, and ate it. It went well with the coffee, so I had another. I looked out the window at the mountains of lumber, scrap metal and other junk piled up next to an outbuilding that looked like a cross between a tool shed and the Winchester Mystery House. I wondered about all that stuff.

“So I started going to the acupuncturist.” Mind wandering, I don’t know how we got from ginger snaps to acupuncture. “But,” she continued, “I’m too sensitive for the needles, so he just tapes magnets to my hands.”

“Magnets?” I almost spit up my coffee.

“He tapes them to my hands, and my hands just shake. See, they’re still shaking now.” She held out her skinny hands and indeed, they were quivering.

I listened to her prattle on as she did, sometimes for hours, and felt bad. She really worked hard, between the pet sitting visits she did herself and the managing of the business and her several employees. She was lonely and didn’t seem to have any friends, she didn’t eat or sleep well, she wore the same old clothes every day, and she spent all her money on psychics and alternative medicines in an attempt to cure her neuroses. Lost in my internal dialogue, I hardly noticed some noise outside the kitchen window, but I couldn’t help but see a man walking right by.

“Who’s that?” I asked Krystal.

“Oh,” she said, “That’s Howard.”

“Howard?” A neighbor? Another boyfriend?

Now, in crowded and costly San Francisco it’s not uncommon for homes to be chopped up and subdivided until landlords have 10 people living where there should be three; however, I was still surprised – and amused, I’ll admit – when Krystal said, “There is a very nice, very quiet gay couple living in the back yard.”

The Pet Sitter Mobile

At age 21, I bought a motorcycle, a Yamaha Virago -- meaning warrior woman-- dark red with chrome. On that bike with my black helmet and black suede leather jacket with the fringe, I thought I was the coolest amazon in town. Pet sitting on a motorcycle turned out to be great during the summer months, all that sun and fresh air and only $3 to fill up the gas tank, but when the rainy season started it was a real drag. I tried every type of rain gear, but nothing could keep me from getting soaked to the skin, and spending a day on your feet in wet shoes and underwear is quite unpleasant. The day finally came for me to buy a car.

Since I had only had my business less than a year, my budget was rather limited: I had no more than $1000 to purchase my new wheels, so I went to my local convenience store and picked up the Auto Trader magazine, a good pre-internet source for used vehicles. Each ad included a description of the vehicle with a photo and the seller’s phone number. Of course, one had to know how to translate these ads:”like new” meant not too many dents, “never raced” meant it probably was, especially if it was a Camero with a huge engine, and “cherry” meant it was washed recently. All ads contained the ubiquitous phrase, “runs good,” including, amazingly, some for cars without engines! I sat down with a cup of coffee and a pen and circled the most likely vehicles for me, then I began to make phone calls. The conversations went something like this:

Me: “Hi, I’m interested in your 1980 Honda.”
Woman’s voice: “Oh, it’s my husband’s car.”
“Okay, may I speak with your husband?”
“No, he doesn’t speak English.”
“Okay, how about I ask you questions and you ask your husband?”
After a long pause she agreed.

My first question, a common one, “How many miles does it have on the odometer?” I sat with pen poised over my notebook with the list of car-purchasing questions.

I heard her place the phone down on the table, then a muffled exchange in Spanish. She picked the phone up after some time and said, “My husband says, it doesn’t matter how many miles it has!”

My next call was no more successful. A man with a strong New York accent sang the praises of his 1982 Toyota Corolla for ten minutes, then said, “It just has oooone little problem.”
“Oh really, and what’s that?”
“Well, it doesn’t have third gear, but it runs just fine, you just shift like this: first, second, fourth!”

After the telephone screening, there was the actual viewing of the vehicles, which was no less amusing. Having been raised by my Dad, I was more car savvy than the average girl, but I was still leery of going to strangers’ homes alone, so he joined me for the shopping. So it was that we pulled up to the home of Chip, who was selling a 1980 Toyota Celica. Chip lived in, let’s just say, the “inexpensive” part of town; I immediately noticed that, along with a great deal of rubbish, there were several Toyotas in front of his home in varying states of repair. The hood was up on one of them and he was deeply buried in the engine compartment; my eyes traveled to his pants, which were slipping down and, oh god, there it was, the crack of his butt greatly exposed. I got out of Dad’s car and was accosted by the smell of dirty motor oil and Gunk engine cleaner spray. The smell got worse as we climbed into the Celica with Chip, who for some strange reason insisted on driving it himself, rather than letting one of us drive. Oil and Gunk were joined by B.O. and the smell of filthy upholstery and sun-damaged vinyl. He popped the clutch and flew down the street, hanging corners and grinding through the gears like a madman, talking all the way.

“Yeah, I did all the repairs on this car myself,” he said, to no great surprise. “I replaced the brakes and the clutch.” As if on cue, the clutch slipped just as he said that. “Yeah,” he went on, patting the cracked and warped dash board, “It runs good, but the insides ain’t so cherry!”

Finally my search yielded a treasure, a dark blue 1980 Honda Civic hatchback, great for transporting dogs, cheap on gas, and, as I soon discovered, small enough to park anywhere. I paid the seller $900 cash and drove away feeling like a wealthy lady in a Rolls Royce; that feeling was soon tempered, however, by my discovery of the vehicle’s “idiosyncrasies.” For one thing, the seat was not bolted down. It was somehow attached on the left side, so no problem making a right turn, but a left turn caused me and the seat to tilt at an alarming angle. There was no back seat, which was unsightly but worked out fine for dog transport. There were also some slight electrical problems, like when I put on the turn signal, the horn beeped, and when I pressed the horn, the turn signals flashed. When the rainy season started, I discovered that the sun roof, installed by the previous (teenage boy) owner, was not sealed properly and water leaked all over the place. I drove around wondering what was worse, sitting on a dry motorcycle seat and getting rained on or sitting on a wet, moldy smelling car seat? I developed a method of folding newspaper and wedging it between the visor and the leaky window. The newspaper turned out to be just as useful for absorbing rain water as puppy pee, and as long as I changed it every couple of days I stayed dry.

By the time I got rid of the Honda, it had 250,000 miles on the odometer; like the ad claimed, this vehicle “ran good” and, despite its shortcomings, was reliable transportation for two years, until I could afford to buy what I always wanted, a truck ... but that’s another story.

Puffer Fish

I never knew that fish had much in the way of personality.

As a kid I’d had my share of goldfish, the kind won at carnivals by tossing ping pong balls into bowls. Despite my attentive care, they seldom lived longer than a year in their little plastic bowl in my bedroom. In high school, I somehow got involved in a guppy-breeding project for science class. Myself and several other students brought home various guppies, males and females, and did reports on what we observed. What I observed was that guppies are pretty, they are very prolific, and they like to eat their babies. In my 20’s, I got into aquariums and, for a couple years, had a fresh-water setup. These critters were even more delicate than the gold fish and the guppies, and I had a heck of a time keeping them alive; it seemed like the more they cost, the more likely they were to be short-lived. I finally managed to have a stable population for a while, until I decided that it would be fun to add a little crab to the mix. It was fun until the fish started disappearing, and when I cleaned the tank I noticed a pile of fish skeletons under the rock where the crab liked to hang out. Still determined to make it work, I hired an aquarium maintenance guy, Dan, to advise me and to help me clean the tank and make sure it was running properly. He was very knowledgeable and a big help, but unfortunately he came with a jealous wife who had to accompany him on his rounds. She’d sit on my bed, not saying a word, staring at me and at him as he worked on the tank. When he wasn’t shoulder-deep in the tank, she was hanging off his arm, perhaps protecting him from a sudden attack by me. It was awkward to say the least. After that, I decided that keeping fish was just way more work and expense than it was worth for the enjoyment, or lack of, I got from them.

Susie and Jilly, however, made me think differently. Susie and Jilly were puffer fish, club-shaped brown and white creatures with large expressive eyes and absurdly small fins. When comfortable, they had a smooth appearance, but when alarmed they would “puff” and their bodies would resemble a spiky balloon. There is poison in their skin, so any predator trying to eat them will be stabbed by the spikes and injected with poison. In Japan, the larger puffers are eaten as a delicacy, and several people die each year from improper preparation.

It was hard to imagine these cute, clumsy things being deadly poisonous. They bobbed around in the water like some kind of children’s toys, opening and closing their mouths and looking around with their big eyes. They seemed to be quite aware of the environment outside the tank, unlike the banal, blank-expressioned fish I was used to.

“Here is their food,” said Kate, the fishes’ owner, opening the freezer. She pointed to several different bags of frozen fish-goodies. “Don’t give them too much!” she cautioned. “They love their food.”

There was another tank containing a lion fish, Leo, another spiny poisonous critter. This one was beautiful and regal with a great plume of fins and tail, floating about in an aloof manner, nice to look at but not interactive like the puffers.

“Be sure not to touch them,” Kate cautioned. “They are poisonous. They’re not aggressive, but if you startle them you might get stung.” I assured her that I had no intentions of putting my hands anywhere near these little people.

On my first day caring for the fish, everything went smoothly. I walked into the home office room where the tanks were set up and took a look at everyone. Pumps, lights, and heaters were all plugged in and on timers, so all I had to do was make sure everything was doing what it was supposed to. All seemed well, so I proceeded to the little freezer with the food inside. Leo was floating regally, seemingly unaware of my presence, but Susie and Jilly appeared to be watching my every move. When I opened the freezer their tiny fins moved very fast and they opened and closed their mouths.

“Here you go, girls!” I said, dropping the goodies into the tank. The girls devoured the frozen brine-shrimp-and-who-knows-what-else in seconds. I gave Leo his portion and he attacked it, pulling off portions and consuming them. Lion, indeed.

Two days later, I walked into the office room and did my usual check. When I turned my back on the puffers’ tank, I thought I felt something wet on the back of my neck. “What the?” I said to myself, looking up at the ceiling for a leak. I saw nothing unusual, so I reached again for the freezer door. Splash! This time it hit me in the face. What on earth was happening? I was standing several feet from the tank, so water couldn’t just be dripping out onto me. Susie and Jilly were wiggling near the surface of the water looking excited. Could it be? I reached for the door again, but kept my eyes on the tank. I’ll be damned if they didn’t fill their mouths with water and expertly spit it at me!

A week into the job, I arrived to see things looking different. There had been a massive storm the previous night, taking down trees and fences all over San Mateo County. I’d already started my day chasing a client’s Beagle across a golf course who had escaped because of a downed fence. Many homes in the area had lost power, probably this one too.

Leo looked lethargic, and the girls were staying near the surface of their water, mouths open. I wasn’t hearing all the usual noises. I suppressed panic as I realized that the machinery pumping air into the water was probably not working! I grabbed the phone to call an aquarium store, and thankfully got someone on the line. I waited tensely, talking to the fish as if they could understand me. “Come on, girls,” I said, touching the glass front of the tank, “Hang in there. Help is on the way!” They looked at me and moved their fins weakly. After what seemed like an eternity, the aquarium service person showed up.

“How long has it been like this?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I got here an hour ago, and I haven’t been here since yesterday. The power must have gone out last night because of the storm. It must have reset everything.”

“Hmm,” he frowned and got to work. After a while, he was able to get everything back working the right way.

“Will they be okay?” I asked, eyeing my two sad-looking club-shaped friends.

“If they didn’t go too long without oxygen.”

The next day I came to see the fish first thing in the morning. I was delighted to see everyone looking active and normal. Susie and Jilly were spitting at me even before I walked near the freezer. Checking Leo’s tank, I noticed with dismay that one of the heating tubes, attached to the inside with suction cups, had been knocked loose, presumably by the actions of the aquarium service person. “Damn it,” I said, looking at the large poisonous fish cruising around next to the floating tube. I waited till he was at the opposite end of the tank, then carefully lowered my hand into the water and attempted to grab the tube. This proved more difficult than I thought, as it was slippery and the surface of the water distorted my vision. After several attempts, I still didn’t have a hold of it. Slowly, like a tank, Leo turned and headed back towards my hand. Did he look “alarmed” or was it my imagination? I removed my hand from the water, and waited. Thinking of how it would feel to be stabbed by those poisonous spines, I slowly and carefully replaced the heater where it belonged. Crisis averted, again.

On my last day, I said goodbye to my new friends and marveled at my new appreciation of the personalities of fish. Figuring the girls saw me as a friend and food-provider, I couldn’t resist sticking just the tip of my finger into their water and letting them nibble on it.

A New Job, Part Two

This story is Part Two in a series. If you haven't yet read Part One, CLICK HERE.

Clutching my backpack with both hands, I walked up the stairs to my first pet sitting client’s home. There were three flats in the building, and hers was the middle. I knocked on the door and it was quickly opened.

“Hi, I’m the pet sitter.”

“Come in,” she smiled, and stepped aside to reveal an adorable pit bull puppy. He was fawn colored with a black face and big dark eyes. At the moment, he sat in the middle of the floor concentrating on a red rubber chew toy.

I went right to him, sat on the floor, and pet his cute face. Abandoning the toy, he climbed into my lap and licked my face.

His owner looked worried. “You have done this before?”

“Yes, of course.” Not exactly, but it wasn’t as if I didn’t know how to care for a puppy. Mugsy, as he was called, was Nancy’s first dog. She had just bought this flat and was excited to finally be able to keep a pet. She wanted to do everything right, from diet to training to house breaking. She had called Krystal, my boss, to set up visits twice a day while she was at work. Since Mugsy was so young and not fully vaccinated, all I had to do was let him in the back yard and play with him. Seriously, I thought, I am going to be paid for this? I got all the pertinent info: visit times, routine, where everything is kept, and I had her sign the service agreement. It’s official now, I thought, I’m a professional pet sitter. I shouldered by backpack with paperwork, day planner, and other necessities inside, and headed out the door to meet my next new client.

My next new charge was bigger, and longer, and thinner. Dolly the Greyhound was a track rescue, a lean dark brindle with a great toothy smile and a tail so long and active it was often bleeding at the tip. Greyhound racing, still legal in 15 states (not including California), produces thousands of unwanted dogs every year. By the age of five years -- or sooner if they don’t place well enough in the races -- dogs are retired, and before the creation of rescue and adoption groups, “retirement” only meant one thing … death. Thanks to these tireless nonprofit groups, many of these dogs are instead placed in loving homes where they soon adapt to life as a pet.

I don’t believe I ever touched a Greyhound before Dolly. I’d seen them in pictures -- the pointed faces, the huge thighs, the whippy tails -- but meeting one in person was, well, a whole different animal. Since then I have known and loved many of these special dogs, and they never fail to delight me with their positive energy. Dolly was typical with her wide adoring eyes, big smile, and happy-dancing feet. I was in love at once. I pet her super-short fur as I listened to her owner, Jim,talk about her. Jim and his wife Hazel were not new to dogs, but they were new to Greyhounds, so they were eager to learn. Dolly had some goofy habits they couldn’t figure out, like an inability to walk up and down stairs, and a thing for music.

“Music?” I asked.

“Yes, we heard that at the track they leave a radio on all the time, so we do that at home and it seems to calm her. She likes classical.”

At the mention of her favorite music, Dolly’s head popped up and she gave her owner a loving look with her great dark eyes.

“I’ll be sure to leave the music on,” I said with a smile.

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“Mugsy, I’m here!” Two weeks had passed since my first day as a professional pet sitter. I was loving my new job and actually eager to start work each morning. I opened the door of the flat to see a great pup who was, as always, larger than yesterday. He came bounding down the stairs and stood expectantly at my feet. He was quite friendly, but also independent, and didn’t whine or make a fuss. I opened the back door and together we walked down the stairs to the yard. While he took care of business, I sat on a bench and unwrapped the breakfast I’d purchased down the street at the bagel shop. Sipping my apple juice, I watched him cavort and felt that all was well in the world. He bounded around, playing with leaves that floated around the back yard in a breeze. After 30 minutes, I gave him a cookie and locked him back in the house. Noticing the shredded (expensive looking) dog bed, I thought to suggest crate training to Mugsy’s owner. Leaving a pup alone anywhere, let alone a nice flat with new furnishings, was not the best idea. I headed out and off to my next visit.

I didn’t have to call out for Dolly – she knew the sound of my vehicle and was waiting always by the door. I could hear her tail whacking against the wall as I fumbled with the lock and pushed my way in. The house looked like it used to be a store, and the front door, or doors, were swinging glass. There was a living room, bathroom, and kitchen on the ground level and the bedroom, which was formerly an attic, was on the second level and could be accessed via a ladder. The leggy dog wasn’t able to climb the ladder; nor, in fact, was she able to climb down the stairs into the back yard. Her owners, unable to get her to take a step, had to carry her. I slipped the wide martingale collar used for walks around her neck, clipped on the leash, and headed out the door. She was a dream to walk, sweet and attentive, seldom pulling on the leash except for when she saw a small animal running. Her owners had warned me – and I had since read in a book about Greyhounds – of their ability to “run without heed.” Because of this, it was never recommended to take them off-leash except for in a very secure area. Apparently, this “ability” comes in handy when hunting or running on the track, but it can make for a challenging pet. Dolly’s neighborhood was hilly, so we had a good 30 minute exercise by the time we were done. I removed the walking collar, gave her a cookie, and went on my way.

A month later, I was cruising through my pet sitting days with ease. I’d met a few other new clients and was beginning to do some vacation care for cats and dogs. Mugsy and Dolly continued to be my favorite daily companions, however, and I always looked forward to their visits. Life was good and nothing could possibly go wrong. Opening the door to Mugsy’s on this windy Spring day, I was surprised when he didn’t appear. “Hello?” I shouted in the door, thinking maybe the client was at home. In those pre-cell phone days, immediate communication was not yet a reality, leading to some mix-ups and embarrassing moments. No one answered, so I entered the house and looked around. Finally, Mugsy, who was now four months old and getting quite tall, came walking out of the bedroom. He looked sleepy, and clumsy. “What have you been up to?” I said, petting his head. It didn’t take long to find out: in the bathroom, the medicine cabinet was wide open and all kinds of medication boxes and jars were on the floor. Pain killers, cough syrup, decongestants … all had tooth marks on them and parts of the packaging were missing. “Oh no!” I said as I looked back at Mugsy, who smiled up at me with glassy eyes. I ran down to the car and got his owner’s contact info. Thinking he was going to drop dead any minute, I called her at work and, fortunately, got her right away. At first, she didn’t seem too alarmed. In the future, I would experience this again and again as I called clients to tell them of disasters which had occurred with their pets. As grace under pressure is one of my strong suits, I wonder if my apparent calmness leads people to believe that it isn’t all that bad; perhaps they don’t get the sense of urgency if the caller isn’t shouting and crying? After some convincing, thank god, Nancy agreed to come home immediately and take him to the vet. It was a nerve-wracking 15 minutes waiting for her, and when she did arrive home she seemed shocked at his drunken appearance.

“What should I do?” she asked.

“Take him straight to the vet,” I said, handing her a stack of shredded papers. Knowing the vet would ask what had been consumed, I had picked up the shreds of the medication boxes with the product names on them: DayQuil, Advil, Pepto Bismol… Putting the pieces in her purse, she took Mugsy and I headed out to Dolly’s.

The first thing I noticed was no whippy tail sound on the wall. Red flag, I thought … where is Dolly? I pushed open the double frosted glass door and peeked in. “Hello?” I called out. My voice echoed through the cavernous house, and no one answered. Locking the door behind me, I went straight to the kitchen where Dolly’s owners often left notes for me. On the wood table was a basket of apples and a phone bill, but no note. Hmm. I searched all over the house and yard, thinking Dolly was stuck somewhere, but I saw no sign of her. I picked up the phone and dialed Jim’s work number. Fortunately, he answered right away.

“Hi Jim,” I said. “I’m here to walk Dolly, but she’s not here. Was I supposed to come today?”

Jim’s voice cracked as he told me what happened. That morning, Hazel had taken Dolly to a big field in the neighborhood where many people ran their dogs. Hazel was very bonded with Dolly at this point, and found her to be very attentive and obedient. Eager to allow Dolly some socialization, she thought it would be okay to allow her off-leash as she would stay with the other dogs and always came when called. Dolly was having a great time running around with the local Labs and Pit Bulls, until a cat darted across a yard … across the street from the field. Like an arrow released from the bow, Dolly shot straight towards the cat, right into the street, her ears deaf to Hazel’s shouts. A Toyota Corolla was coming along at that moment, and the driver had no time to stop as the dog suddenly appeared from behind other parked cars. He hit her and she went airborne, to the horror of everyone watching. The driver stopped and spoke briefly with Hazel, but soon went on his way. Since dogs were not actually allowed off-leash there and he was not speeding, he was not at fault.

“Will she be okay?” I asked, having terrible flashbacks of one of my dogs being hit by a car, having major orthopedic surgery, and never being the same again.

“We don’t know,” Jim replied. “She’s at the vet now.”

My heart sank as I hung up the phone. Tears in my eyes, I drove on to my next visit.

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“How’s my Mugsy?” I called out as I entered the flat. A week had passed since the terrible day he'd eaten a cabinet full of medicines. I heard a great metallic clanging as his long tail hit the sides of his shiny new dog crate in the kitchen. “Good dog,” I cooed as I clipped the collar to his leash and took him out for a walk (quickly, as he had to pee immediately and a hesitation would equal a puddle). Now old enough and fully vaccinated, he was good to go for walks off the property. People crossed the street when they saw us coming. Adopted as a “Boxer mix,” Mugsy’s startling growth was making “Mastiff mix” his more likely breed. We enjoyed a stroll around the neighborhood, then I gave him a chewy bone and locked him in his crate. Thank god, his brush with death had left him no worse for the wear, and it had taught his owner an important lesson. She had initially resisted crate training because she thought it was cruel, but after almost losing her puppy and running up a $1000+ vet bill, she decided it wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

By the time I got to Dolly’s, I was tired. I hadn’t slept well the previous night, and the driving was making me drowsy. My spirits were raised, however, when I saw my friend walk happily up to the door and whack her tail on the wall. “Good dog,” I said, stroking her muscular body which was intact except for a few abrasions. Amazingly, the only thing she suffered as a result of the accident was shock. She had no broken bones or other permanent damage. An afternoon at the vet had pulled her out of shock and back into the land of the living, where she would never again be let off-leash in a non-secure area. I closed the swinging glass doors behind me and flopped down on the big comfy couch. It’s a little-known fact that Greyhounds, although one of the fastest land animals, are actually quite lazy. They love to lounge around, and most Greyhound owners will have a large collection of thick, fluffy beds in every room. Dolly hopped up on the couch next to me and put her pointed head in my lap. I stroked her and played with her little ears, getting very comfortable as the warm sun poured on me through the glass doors. The next thing I knew, I heard the front door opening. The couch was directly facing the front door, so there was no escape. Jim had come home early, and caught me sound asleep! Stammering and wiping the drool from my mouth, I grabbed the leash and hurried out for our walk. He just smiled.

To read part three of this story CLICK HERE.