Doggy day care

Sometimes I’m just too nice for my own good. Yesterday was one of those times. A newcomer to the Embassy, who just arrived three weeks ago, desperately needed someone to watch her dog yesterday. Knowing that it was probably going to be a disaster, I went ahead and said yes. I’ve got to have some serious good karma built up by this point - I’m just waiting for it to catch up with me.

Her dog, Charlie, is a super-sweet, well-behaved Shih Tzu. No problem there. Our dog, as you know, is a super-hyper, non-behaving Doberman. Charlie thought the best way to spend the day would be to lay on the couch together and snuggle. Laika thought that was the stupidest thing she’d ever heard. If there’s another dog in the room, the best thing to do is Play, Play, PLAY!!! You know I was totally on Charlie’s side, but, unfortunately, Laika out-muscles us both.

The following is what ensued when the two were brought together. You’ll notice the crazy camera angle. That’s because Charlie thought the safest place to get away from Laika would be on my lap. That crazy Doberman would never lunge and snap at her owner, right? Sorry, Charlie.

So I would tolerate about an hour of Laika basically getting in Charlie’s face and going “HEY, HEY, HEY!” And Charlie snapping back with “Get out of my face, you freak!” Then I would force them apart (well, mostly the force was on Laika’s end) for an hour of mandated rest time. This went on for the longest 9 hours of my life. On the positive side, I was only bitten 3 times. As you can see, it could have been much, much worse.