The Pet Sitter Files: Jack and Lola

I worked as both an employee of Rover and a freelance pet sitter between the ages of 20 and 23. During that time, I encountered my fair share of strange dogs, difficult clients, and problems I created for myself due to my tendency to panic in crisis situations. These stories are my personal anecdotes about the gigs that I only managed to get through because I kept telling myself “well, at least it’ll make a good story”. Names and locations have been changed.

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When I agreed to my first house/pet sitting gig for these clients, I had no idea I’d be back again in another month.

And another.

And another three after that.

They told me that they left for a week every month to see their kids who lived out of state, but the longer I sat for their dogs the more I began to wonder if it was less of a trip to and more of an escape from.

We'll call these dogs Lola and Jack. To be honest, it was really only Jack that made me want to put my head through a wall. Lola was actually pretty good; she never made a sound (apart from wheezing due to being brachycephalic) and spent most of her time sleeping. The only thing that gave me the ick about her was that her tongue was always hanging lifelessly out of the side of her mouth, slowly drying out until she re-hydrated it by licking the foamy white spittle that accumulated on her chin. As for Jack, I don't think there's a universe out there in which he's a normal dog.

Both dogs slept in kennels in the living room and the minute I put Jack in there, he’d start howling and whining like a puppy being left alone for the first time. He’d continue as I went upstairs, got ready for bed, and turned up my sound machine to drown out the noise. I don’t know how long he carried on for, but the minute he woke up in the morning, he'd pick up where he left off and I’d have to hurriedly get up and let him out, fearing he'd wake the neighbors.

During my first booking, I had the foolish idea of trying to take a nap to gain back the sleep I’d lost to Jack. After we returned from our morning walk, I put Jack back in his kennel and hopped into bed. My head hadn’t even hit the pillow before the sound of whining pierced through the quiet, punctuated by barks that steadily rose in volume. The last thing I wanted was for the neighbors to think I was torturing him, so I raced downstairs to let him out.

My clients had told everyone in the neighborhood that I was pet-sitting and I could tell they were keeping an eye on me. Every time I took the dogs for a walk, the neighbors would watch me from their porches and driveways. During the 10 days I was there, every morning at around 11 am, someone would knock on the door. It was the same every time. Three knocks, then the doorbell would ring. I never saw any car or truck outside and no packages were left on the step. I had a sneaky feeling it was because of Jack, so I couldn’t risk him carrying on for too long.

Keeping him quiet took precedence over sleep.

Exhausted, I went to the bathroom to change out of my pajamas. When I opened the door, I was greeted by a big yellow "screw you" on the floor. Almost every room in the house was permeated by the scent of urine because Jack would often pee inside despite being walked at least three times a day.

Walking these two was a whole new level of soul-crushing. Every time a car or a person or a dust particle went by, Jack would bark and tug on the leash until he was wheezing. I'd have to apologize to anyone walking past and try to get him under control while also keeping an eye on Lola as she would, understandably, try to dart into oncoming traffic any chance she got. But apart from her suicidal tendencies, walking her was a breeze. Jack, on the other hand, was a different story.

In addition to going berserk at everything, he also liked to use his hind legs to rip grass out of the ground after he finished doing his business. That’s a typical dog thing that I normally wouldn't have thought twice about; however, this neighborhood had no sidewalks, so the only place for him to do it was on people’s perfectly manicured lawns. But once I knew he was going to do it, I would just wait for him to finish and then pull him away before he could do too much damage.

One day, while we were out on our afternoon walk, Lola decided to pop a squat and do her business in the middle of someone’s front yard. As she was defiling this poor person’s lawn, the owner of said lawn suddenly pulled into the driveway. Embarrassed, I glanced at the car to see if anyone was watching and the driver and I made very awkward eye contact for a split second. I took out a poop bag, wanting them to see that I had it and was prepared to clean up after Lola. I prayed she wouldn’t have diarrhea - due to the stress of their owners being gone, a lot of dogs usually do.

She did, of course.

While I was doing my best to clean up something that had the consistency of hot fudge, out of the corner of my eye I noticed Jack had squatted and was beginning to drop one as well.

Great.

I tied off Lola’s bag - I’d only managed to scrape up 60% of the poop - and set it down, then I fumbled another bag out of my pocket and hurriedly went to clean up after Jack. It was a hot fudge day for him. The moment I’d clasped my bagged hand around the warm, reeking liquid, I heard a ripping sound and looked over to see him kicking up his back legs. Grass flew up all around him, then dirt. I tried my best to pull him away, but in doing so, I accidentally let go of the restriction button on Lola's leash and she happily trotted into the middle of the road.

My heart leapt into my throat as a car rounded the corner and began barrelling towards her. Panicking, I let go of the bag, retracted Lola's leash, wound Jack's leash around my wrist, and pulled them both toward me.

The car sped past.

Disaster averted.

Relieved, I turned my attention back to the task at hand - and froze. The poop was still there, but the bag wasn’t. I looked around hoping to spot a flash of blue somewhere, but it was very windy that day and I knew that the elements had mercilessly taken the bag from me. All I had now was the used bag, too weighed down by its contents to have blown away. I untied the bag, releasing an ungodly stench so foul it burned my nostrils, and proceeded to try and scrape Jack's liquid feces into it with a rock. It didn't work very well and I decided to just admit defeat and leave the mess there. At least no one saw this all go down.

Wait...

A pit of dread formed in my stomach as I nervously glanced across the soiled lawn at the driveway.

The car was still there and so was the driver, glaring at me through the window.

I kept my gaze trained on the ground as I quickly walked past her, but I could feel her eyes burning into me long after I was out of sight.

About an hour after we’d gotten home, I turned my back on Jack for 30 seconds to prepare some dinner and when I turned back around, there was a pile of poop and a puddle of pee on the floor. I did my best to clean it up, but the carpet was stained with decades of messes and it was hard to differentiate old from new. I guess Jack had broken his owner's spirits long ago and they’d just given up on trying to clean it.

I looked after those dogs for a week and when my job was done, I told myself I was never going back there. A few weeks later, they requested me again. I was incapable of saying no and I needed the money, so I accepted. I went through all of this again, and another three times after that. However, the last time I sat for them, I was informed that Jack was going deaf which, as I’d come to find out, meant that he needed to bark twice as loud and twice as often as before. After that, I decided that no amount of money was worth the torment and as far as the owners know, I’ve moved across the country.