Look who spent last week at our place! We dog-sat these three Chihuahuas for a friend while he was away on holiday.
I’m going to come right out and say I was a bit hesitant when Nick asked if we could do this. I mean, three dogs for a whole eight days! Being a committed cat-person with an allergy to dogs, I’ve never had one, nor any great desire to get one (I love dogs when they are other people’s, though), but Nick reminded me that these were very small, short-hair dogs who were quiet and elderly. And he said that he’d do all the work involved.
We agreed that it would be ok with me, if it was ok with our cat Eddie.
We tested the waters beforehand with a series of visits, and all went well. Eddie is bigger than they are, so maintained his “king of the castle” status, and they had no problem giving him that.
Now that it’s over and they’ve gone home, I will admit that I quite enjoyed having them here. They were such good dogs, sticking mostly to their little assortment of baskets and cushions. They spent the days in the living room and nights enclosed within the front entryway area, with some food, water and bedding.
↑ The 16 year old male, Noodles ↑
↑ His 16 year old sister, Molly ↑
↑ The 9 year old male, Doobie ↑
I only heard a single episode of barking, when a neighbour dog came up to the fence while they were outside. Aside from that, all we heard from them was quite a lot of snoring, and the clickety-click of their nails on the floor. Oh, and also there was the sad sad howling from Doobie towards the end of the week, whenever Nick would leave the house. That was hilarious and so cute.
Eddie absolutely loved their kibble and tried to sneak it whenever he could. We’d cover their bowl and he would sit beside it asking us to please remove the cover. I checked online to see if he could get sick from it, and the verdict was that it’s ok for cats to eat a bit of dog kibble, as long as they also eat their own food, (because each species requires different nutrients and cats need more meat.) That was a good thing, because the hardest part of the whole thing would have been keeping the cat away from that kibble! They also freely drank from each others’ water bowls with no qualms at all.
As for my allergy, it wasn’t too bad because I didn’t touch them much and they didn’t shed at all. And I took antihistamine pills, which left me more drowsy and out of sorts than usual, but that gave the whole experience a dream-like and cozy quality.
Thanks for reading,
xo loulou
