Adventures in babysitting

My aunt and her husband are on a cruise this week… lucky them. They have two dogs (Sandy and Simon) and four cats (Smokey, Fred, Barney and… I forget the fourth). They asked if I could house/animal sit while they were gone… and me being the wonderful nephew that I am (and that I owe my wonderful aunt so much) said I would.

There’s one problem problem in all this. It isn’t that I don’t like animals or anything, it’s just that Simon is afraid of me.

Yes, afraid… and not just shy… it is a  “turns tail and runs the other direction when he sees me” kind of afraid. Normally, when I am just visiting it is not a huge issue. He just doesn’t come in the same room I am in. But at some point he will need to go outside to do what it is that dogs do when they go outside. Since he lacks opposible thumbs he relies on a person, such as myself, to open the door to let him out and in again. If you have been paying attention though, you may start to see my delima. In order to get outside, he has to come near me.

So far, going out hasn’t been too much of an issue… he just makes a mad dash out the door, skidding across the deck in order to get past the evil entity that is me and out the door.

Coming back in however, is turning into an advenure.

This morning I attempted to hold the door in such a way that he wouldn’t be able to see me, but he knew I was there and wouldn’t come on the deck, let alone near enough to the door to come back in. So I tried propping open the screen door and hiding behind the inside door hoping he’ll come in. That almost worked, but not before one of the cats, Barney I think, got outside. I was able to grab him and get him back inside, scaring Simon back to the depths of the back yard.

After getting my shoes on, I spent the next ten or so minutes palying ‘ring around the rosie’ with Simon, chasing him around a bunch of shrubbery until I was literally able to herd him up on to the deck in the back door… getting back to the door and closing it just as Barney looked to be contemplating making a break for it again.

So much for Day 1.