Houseguest for the Holidays

Gilligan barking and Billy oblivious. Gilligan has personal space issues (he likes to get in others personal space but hates it when others get in his space--this plays out daily with Powderpuff who stalks Gilligan and loves to be close to him...Powder is oblivious to his dislike of being close or else just doesn't care; I think the same is true for Billy)

Gilligan and Billy pretending to behave...I think they are hatching a plan to double team us! Or else they are appreciating the pictures on the wall of Maymont, which is the place where Tristan and I got married.

Last evening we accepted delivery of a houseguest for the Holidays: Billy. We have known for several weeks we are going to pet-sit Billy, a friends puppy. Billy is a huge Old English Sheepdog puppy with lots of energy. In fact, last night Tristan and I considered breaking out the hard liquor or tranquilizers to settle down (we debated: would it be a better idea to consume it ourselves or to give it to Billy?)

Over the past few weeks we warned Billy's family that our house is a mess (we live life to the fullest but our obituaries will probably not include the phrase "and they had cleanest house ever"). In fact the few people who have seen our house have commented that we probably should be nominated for the show "Clean Sweep" in which a professional organizing team comes in and declutters and tidys a house. Perhaps even a frat house would be neater then our house. The only statement I will make about our house is that all "dangerous" items are behind closed doors, in closed cabinets or not even in the house. When Billy's family dropped him off I think they were shocked. On a positive note, Billy seemed not to care:-)

Well, Billy fit right in to our family, although he did wimper a few times and occasionally looked for his family during the evening. Also I think he was a bit puzzled (and perhaps frightened) by our cats. By this morning this hesitancy related to the cats seemed to be over as I put a cat right in his face and neither animal seemed to care (immersion therapy is my tactic...I am like the dog whisperer except I am terrible at it and I don't go "psst" alot).

Last night Tristan walked Billy (solo--what a sissy Tristan is!). This meant he had to go out twice in some nasty weather; once for Billy and once for Gilligan. This morning I walked Billy with Gilligan (having been brought up with multiple dogs I figured I could pretend I had control of both of them--in fact it was a bit of anarchy on our walk, however, after Gilligan and I got dragged around a bit, but ultimately we did make it back to the house). My impression is that Billy is willing to go in the backyard to do his business; however, Gilligan needs a walk and an audience so I think we tend to walk both dogs (and build up our upper body carrying their poop:-).

This should be quite an adventure because I believe pound for pound, there is more dog in our house then person. For sure, there is more pet (both in count and weight) in our house then person. I sure hope they do not form some crazy pet alliance and vote us out of the house in the next week.