Adventures in Housesitting: Your senses are gone so don't you hesitate

My friend and his father left early Sunday morning for a week-long cruise in or around the Bahamas. I'm not entirely sure of where they'll be visiting, really. All I know is that seeing as I'm unemployed and thus have pretty good availability, I have once again been entrusted with the keys to a real, live suburban home—complete with cable television, internet and a dog that was probably born before either of those were invented.

As you might recall, it was nearly some four years ago that I was asked by aunt & uncle to take care of their cat, Cosmo. But whereas last time I was anxiously waiting for the cat to pinch a loaf, this time around I'm tending to a white lab whose problem isn't with having a bowel movement so much as where he's having them (i.e. in the house).

I originally misheard the dog's name as "Plato" and was impressed by the idea of my friend and his family naming a pet after a student of Socrates and a mentor of Aristotle that laid the philosophical foundations for Western culture/civilization.

Then after clarifying, I found that the name was actually "Play-Doh," which seemed to remind me of about the 3:33 mark of this routine. I'll laugh about it now while I can.



Cosmo passed away last September, so Play-Doh is my first housesitting/pet-watching assignment in a little while. And while the responsibilities are indeed quite minimal, the dog's age and health have been an issue for a number of months now. Since my buddy goes to college at the university about a half-hour away from our town where his father lives, his old man gets to deal with all the fun of tending to Play-Doh on a daily basis. And seeing as the dog has been in decline for quite some time, the debate about putting him to sleep has come up on more than one occasion.

Just before the father and son were to leave for their trip, they decided they'd put off putting the dog down until they got back—a move that my buddy reasoned would help them from being saddened if they had had the deed done before they set sail. I argued it would be worse to put it off and then start dreading what they'd be returning to, but it wasn't exactly something I felt passionate about.

In all honesty, I kind of suspect that my buddy and his father will never put Play-Doh down—mostly because I don't think either of them want to go through the pain captured in the video I've led with here. Or we could even use this scene again. And when I consider that these two men are less than a year from having lost a woman who was a wife to one and a mother to the other, I would think it might even be safe to assume that the breakdown in the video I attached might not compare to what my friends would go through.

I hope to never be placed in a position where I'm forced to make a life-or-death decision for someone other than myself—including pets. But for this week, I'm OK with watching over one more animal for just long enough until the owners arrive at their own decision.

Lord only knows I still haven't figured that much out for myself, let alone Play-Doh.