Bethundra's Profile

About 50% of my life is spent in strange homes taking care of pets. Here are things I appreciate knowing:

If your vacuum involves anything more than flipping a big, obvious switch, please show me how to use it. I'm too poor to own a Dyson or whatever so I have no clue what to do.

If you have multiple game and entertainment systems, please leave detailed notes on how to flip back and forth between tv, dvds, and games. I will save this for future visits.

Please leave an adequate amount of food for your pet. Also leave an adequate amount of poop bags so I'm not forced to raid your zip-locs.

Please don't leave your dirty laundry scattered around or a sink full of old, dirty dishes.

The big one: If you are unable to be reached, please leave me the name of a family member or friend whom you trust to make quality of life/end of life decisions on your behalf when it comes to a pet. I do not want that responsibility since our thresholds for what we're willing to allow our pets to endure are probably different.

I generally have wonderful clients who allow me to eat whatever is in their kitchen and don't care if I invite a friend or two over to use the BBQ and watch a movie. Some tip me beyond what I charge (always appreciated, especially with animals who need injections, fluids, extra care or are just high maintenance).

My favorite client makes a point of acclimating her crazy cat to a later morning feed schedule so I'm not forced to suffer the cat yowling at 4:30AM which is when said client gets up to go to the gym. Her boyfriend has me email him lists of movies I want to see and he queues those up in Netflix.
My least favorite would squabble over any price increases (I asked for $5 more per night over the holidays! gasp!), didn't think two adult dogs needed to be housebroken, and left lists of intensive housework for me to do (she would suspend her actual housekeeper while I was there since she figured she could get free work out of me). No, lady, I will not clean your windows, dust the ceiling, and tidy your entertainment system's cables. She would also ask me to hire a dog walker out of my own pocket, which would have been 90% of what she paid me daily, on the days I went to work. I told her she either needed to pay me enough to quit my job or continue to pay her own dog walker to come in twice a day as usual.

http://nativeappropriations.blogspot.com/2010/12/random-appropriation-of-day-native.html

I frequently dog-sit for weeks at a time and it too has changed my life. While I used to want a dog for myself, I realize now how annoying it is to have to rearrange my entire life around them. I imagine it doesn't help that my wards are extremely high maintenance, neurotic, and poorly trained/behaved.

The joy in the whole situation, for me, is when I go home after dog-sitting. First thing I do is wash all my clothes (the dog owner's machines are so clogged with dog hair that my clothes never actually get clean), put a spread of snacks on the coffee table (no noses trying to steal food), marvel at my clean home, sprawl on my hair-free bed, and go out with friends for hours at a time without worrying about coming home to an accident. GLORIOUS!

Hooray for this post! I have actually spent some time in Uganda and even though I made sure to fill an extra suitcase with treasures, I'm still disappointed with myself for not really loading up on textiles (I went on to study African textiles in college for a couple of quarters, I love them so much). That being said, I do have a few of these baskets, as well as some musical instruments and three Kuba cloth pieces from the Congo. I'm trying to figure out a way to display the Kuba cloth as they're all slightly different sizes. The price of custom framing pains me, as I'm poor, but I don't like the look of just tacking them onto the wall as is.