Wednesday, April 9, 2014
Part 1: A Pugless Vacay?!
A family member told us the other day that we treat our pugs better than most people treat their children. Of course, we have a tendency to agree (even if that meant that there was a sad realization that this means that children often ill treated).
This came on the heels of a recent debate we have been having in the OBP home. Can we take a pugless vacation? Can we go anywhere, stay overnight, without the dogs and cat and not need to take Xanax to relieve our anxiety? Can we trust anyone to stay with them? In our house? Alone? And still find positive results when we arrive home? The fact that Benjamin, Henry and Luna require quite a bit of attention gave us, the humans at OBP, much food for thought in making a decision that we have struggled with year after year since we've moved to Florida. Can we really take a trip somewhere together and not bring along the gang? If we went away, who would watch the pugs?
We have long known that our pugs are high maintenance. Yet, the realities of "who would watch the pugs" lead to an entirely revamped analysis of this concept. Grammy, who lives up the street, watches the pugs for a few hours every weekday/workday. But Grammy has 3 cats of her own, an active social life, gardening that she loves to tend to, books to write (her latest, Katie Did, is now available) and a husband at home that likes to have his wife around.
We knew that asking Grammy to work an additional entire vacation shift would be out of the question. So, who could we ask?! G'Ma, of course! But G'Ma still lives up North. And she does have a job, a husband and other responsibilities BUT no pets and she had been wanting to get away from the snow for bit! So the idea sounded grand!
We made the offer to G'Ma and she accepted. Still, there was much planning to be done. G'Ma would be here just short of a week. A few of the early days would be a pug boot camp for her. She'd be learning the drill, mastering how to give Luna her inhaler, understanding their special needs, etc. It is a lot to learn! Then the real work would begin when the OBP parents left.
Before G'Ma arrived, we got to work making notes, prepping systems and doing everything possible to help make it easier for her. But what we found in this process is that we essentially are running a Home for Senior Pugs.
More on the pugs' routine and G'Ma's adventures in pug sitting coming soon.
heather charles
04/09/2014
I would love to pug sit, unfortunately I live in Australia