In late August, our youngest daughter, Nancy, asked if we could dog-sit their basset hound, Daisy Mae for a week. "Sure, when?....."Tomorrow?
..."dahhhhh OK" This had been a summer of dog sitting. Granddaughter
Jennifer called in July to ask if we could take care of her little
highland terrier, Oakley, then two days later came daughter Christine's
call from Chicago, "Mom, can you watch Cloe and Bella when we go to
Denver?"......."sure" Cloe is a cocker-poo and Bella is Shitz Tzu. So, Oakley, Cloe and Bella were here at the same time. The girls got
along great...once in a while Cloe, the oldest would get a little
peeved with the two younger dogs..."I'm too old to play "chase around
the yard!!!!". Their food dishes had to be in different areas...Cloe
eats like a horse and, if she can, she will eat whatever the other dogs
left in their dishes.
We're not used to little dogs and these pint-sized girls would follow me around like three little white shadows. If I took a step backward, I'd almost step on one of them! Things went very well except at bedtime...Oakley was used to being kenneled at night, but not the other two. They are Christine's babies....so, Ken and I had two bed partners. Ken finally gave up and slept in another room...which actually caused me to have a week of peaceful sleep....Ken snores. On the other hand, Daisy Mae is a sweetheart but has not been around Ken and I as often. We'd see her when we'd go over to Nancy's house, but she doesn't know us well. Nancy brought her over about 7:15 AM on her way to work...she and family were leaving that afternoon for a vacation in Minnesota before our granddaughter Rebecca went back to school.
We put Daisy Mae in the back yard and I settled into a deck chair to
enjoy the beautiful cool morning, have a cup of tea and watch the birds
devouring the seeds in the bird feeder. Suddenly I realized that
I couldn't see Daisy Mae then caught a glimpse of her tail as she
slipped through the back gate. Yikes, she hadn't been in our care for
15 minutes and I've lost her already. I
started calling "Daisy, Daisy, come're girl"...she just kept going,
slowly but with determination. So out of the yard I went, house
slippers, nightgown and all. I caught up with her two houses away as
she started up the neighbor's front steps. Since I didn't have her leash
I had to grab her collar and try to get her back to our yard. She is
about 15" at the shoulder and weighs about 20+ lbs so I didn't try to
pick her up...I don't think I could have anyway. And, I couldn't bend
over and hold her by the collar while I shuffled her back home...I get a
backache even thinking about it. 
Luckily the
neighbors weren't looking out their windows or driving down the street on their way to work....they would have seen a 74 year old grandmother in a nightgown and fuzzy slippers trying to get an extremely heavy and uncooperative basset hound back to the yard. Her little jaunt must have tired her out because she spent the rest of the morning curled up on our front room chair...which by the way was NEVER allowed when we had dogs. Guess it's that ole grandma thing, grandkids and pets get by with a lot more than they used to.
Since I haven't heard from anyone.....or been pointed out at the grocery store followed by hysterical laughter, I think I pulled it off!!!!!!
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