Confessions of a Pet Sitter

~ Geoff Stamper

Tomorrow is day ten of my current cat sitting assignment. My wife and I have never had pets although our parents, siblings, and children have been owned by a variety of cats and dogs. My brother Jamie turned a rat in the garage and a raccoon with cataracts into pets. They were not blessed with offspring. I almost created a fictional pet so co-workers and strangers on a plane would not think I was weird. But follow-up questions could expose the lie and make me even weirder. I am astounded when vacationing neighbors and family members entrust me with house keys to enable pet feeding. Unfortunately, security cameras have made snooping less fun.

I have three tips if you dogsit or catsit. First, do not use those words. They make your lisp sound vulgar. Second, do not sit for animals that are smarter than you. My sister-in-law Cindy’s dog can open her front door and I cannot. Third, make time to pray for the pets to survive your watch. I never saw one of my sister’s cats until my last day on duty. Shy cat was alive under an upstairs bed. It would have been embarrassing if an autopsy proved she died six days earlier.

I am currently staying overnight with Leo the cat and Zofia (age 10) at their Condo while the parental units are out of town. I did not prepare well. I live close by but my Fitbit charger, prescription glasses, contact solution, and Zofia’s trombone are always at the wrong residence. I did manage to drive Zofia the familiar two miles to school without my glasses. That boosted my confidence. As soon as we hook up a YouTube camera, I will drive the route blindfolded while Zofia shouts directions and Leo plays trombone.

56 thoughts on “Confessions of a Pet Sitter”

  3. You might not appreciate that I often had pet rats in my classroom. While many kids were initially squeamish around them, they usually became converts as the year progressed. One day I was supposed to be observed, and one of my students who had fed and cleaned out their cage failed to get it shut properly. Upon my arrival at school, two escaped convicts were in our classroom. By the time the first bell rang, I had not found them, and school was starting. Knowing kids, there was no chance in hell they would pay attention to me if animals were roaming in the class. I gave them a ten-minute time limit to locate the escapees. It was a giant treasure hunt, and we rounded them up with a minute to spare before my principal walked in. In the words of Paul Harvey, “And now you know the rest of the story.”

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  4. Grand dog sitting a large, high-strung German Shepherd at this very moment. It’s like being around a 90-pound four-legged meth casualty. Grand Kid sitting post school hours daily. Next week I kickstart the enough of this bullshit Nanny McPhee program and turn off all the ASD (anti-social devices) and we read to one another in an old-fashioned reading circle for at least half an hour. I plan on using my simple minded, occasionally profane fiction to keep them interested. “Look. That’s how you spell the word mom uses when she’s driving!”

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  5. We cat sat at our house for 2 weeks. The cat’s name was ‘Heidi’ (we thought). It hid under the deck floor of the enclosed sunroom and we didn’t see it the whole time. We knew it was okay because it ate the food we left out. When the owners came home, they called the cat and it came out right away. Turns out the cats name was ‘Hidey’…

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    1. I am surprised you stayed ten years considering your nickname for Seattle! Zofia actually lives in Bellevue across from Factoria Mall and next to a massage parlor, so it does not seem like the suburbs 😎

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      2. Our Factoria Mall sure is dying. Walmart just bailed and empty stores are filled with things like artwork from local schools or display advertisements for remaining stores in the Mall.

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      3. If Walmart bailed… the malls that has happened to around here are leveled. One is a pile of ground up concrete. The others are open air shopping centers with condos, or condos, or big strip mining gashes in the landscape waiting on ? But for Wally to bail, that spells ghetto or a neighborhood in reclamation. They aren’t in biz to get robbed or lose money. I worked for Behringer when they were based out of Bellevue.

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  9. That’s funny because we are going out of town for a few days in a couple of weeks and we need someone to take care of the cat. You could take a no-expenses-paid trip[ to Colorado. Or not. I made the mistake of dogsitting one time (I don’t have a list) and wound up getting bit. No more critter-sitter jobs for me.

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    1. I would love to visit Colorado (a beautiful state) once again but I might have to hitchhike, not to save on expenses but I cannot seem to find my car keys. Pet owners must be desperate to engage the likes of me: afraid of big dogs, little experience with pets, generally incompetent, and lacking good judgment.

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  12. My wife and I cat-sit for a friend once and we were so overly conscientious we probably added five pounds onto that cat by feeding it so much. We wanted to make sure it didn’t pass away on our watch, but overfeeding it wasn’t exactly helping its health either. After our friend returned home, she just “extra-walked” the cat and it returned to its “playing weight.”

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  14. Mm, l wonder how a raccoon and a rat might mate, that could be an interesting formula. Raccoons can be nasty especially to rats and also humans when their females are in season. I know as l was mullered and mauled at the same time by Batfink who was guarding Damson and the argument became bloody over a ten pound note. So l would hate to think how a rat and a raccoon might handle erotic passions.

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  17. >Third, make time to pray for the pets to survive your watch.

    I totally agree with you! I don’t know how come cats are super shy… If I’d be watching for cat, I need to see what they look like. Once my friend was on duty of taking after cat for several days, I knew her apartment had cat for a while, but they are much faster, familiar with the place, and…much lighter so I couldn’t even catch the cat’d foot steps🤣 I really wasn’t sure if the cat was still alive or dead💫

    Can owners train them to say hello? I think that’s an etiquette😂

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  18. So true. So true. Whenever one spends sometime away, one always finds that something is missing and certain daily routines cannot be performed. I can’t believe that we have so many small things to take care of everyday, like those little regiments, that without them we feel so annoyed.

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  19. Thanks for the morning laugh!
    Will be looking out for your YouTube recording 😂
    I am one of the crazy dog lovers that can’t imagine being without one! Have had one since I been a toddler.

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  20. Funny stuff! A pet rat and racoon; sounds like a children’s book. Maybe. 😆 Made-up pets. 😂 I watched my daughter’s cats a few months back. Pet parent forgot to stock up on their fancy cat food. Mom to the rescue. Had to take one of them for walks. A cat on a leash – that was fun!

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  21. My neighbor asked me to feed their aged cat for a week while they were out of town. I hate cats, but did my duty. I would much rather have watched a trombone. They don’t require feeding so you can let it slide.

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