New Adventures in Dog Sitting

My last post was New Adventures In Homeschooling. Since this seems to be the season of new endeavors, I thought that a similar title would be appropriate for this blog post: New Adventures in Dog Sitting. Being a stay-at-home mom has been richly rewarding in many ways, but financially is not one of them. I miss contributing to the family income and bringing in some cash. But with two young toddlers, plus homeschooling, it would have to be something I could do from home.

My husband and I have talked about how to make some side money many times to speed up the getting out of debt process. After all, things like my student loans aren’t going to disappear, no matter how hard I wish them away.

Maybe I could do one of those work-from-home customer service rep jobs! Oh, yeah. I can see that going over well. “Hi, how may I…hold please. Will you guys stop fighting and be quiet!! I’m on the phone here!! I’m sorry. What were you saying??” So no phone jobs for me.

Perhaps an Uber type of job. Nah, I’d only be free on evenings and weekends. Which probably means picking up people from bars and clubs on a Friday night. Have you seen the videos of drunken people beating up on their Uber drivers?? I’ll pass for now.

Then I came across dog sitting. I’m not sure what led me to it, but the lightbulb came on. I can keep dogs! I know how to do that. So I checked out a few sites, and was most comfortable with Rover.com. I put up a carefully crafted profile and then waited. And waited. And waited. I heard it could take a month or two to get your first client, and they weren’t kidding. But after awhile, we finally got a dog sitting request.

I was nervous at first. The potential client had a 65 pound greyhound. Our dog is about 60 pounds. What if they clash or don’t get along? What if he wasn’t good around small children? It took some getting used to larger dogs when I met my husband. I’ve always been a fan of the toy dog. The teeny-tiny ankle biting, barking dogs with Napoleon complexes. But I eventually lost my hesitation about the larger breeds, and our dog is about as sweet and mellow as you can get.

So, we had a meet and greet last weekend to make sure the dogs got along and that the children were not going to be trampled by some huge, clumsy, hyper canine. I also needed to make sure I could homeschool without having an overly needy dog or one who would gnaw the furniture (or the kids).

But all went well. I liked the owner and the dog. Our first dog will be here this week Tuesday through Saturday. It’s been interesting watching our dog establish her dominance, even though there is a noticeable height difference. But this greyhound is a mellow dude and doesn’t seem bothered by our dog’s strutting.

I barely slept last night because I was so worried about having a new dog in the house. Would he be ok? Would the two dogs get along as well when everyone is sleeping? Would the new dog have anxiety and poop and pee all over our house? But my worries were for nothing. We had a peaceful night. And other than some early morning whining, the cute greyhound is settling in. My 17-month-old is giving me more trouble than the dog is!

I’m hoping to start doing this more often once we get a few reviews under our belt. It gives my husband a taste of having the 2nd dog he wants without the full-time responsibility. As a bonus, I think it will give our dog an occasional playmate. Although she’s been ignoring this first guest for the most part, giving us the “he’s still here” look on occasion. And it gives me some cash to store away in the coffers until I figure out that get rich quick scheme. Or until some hacker does me a favor and erases all traces of my student loan debt from the universe.

Featured Image Credit: Austin Kirk