3/16/09 Dog-Sitting: Emphasis on the Sitting

I'd like to report that hilarity the likes of which even cartoon dogs and cats have never seen occurred, but alas, things have been annoyingly quiet in the house of Quirk. It's been three days, and neither Mia nor the cats seem to care one way or the other about the new arrangement. Mia spends most of her time sleeping in the living room, and the cats spend most of their time trying to figure out if dog food is something they would be interested in trying.

The first day, the cats pretty much stayed upstairs on the bed, and Mia stayed downstairs. The second day, the cats waited until Mia was asleep and then slithered silently from room to room, going about their daily business, but stealthier than usual. By today, everyone was walking around normally. Mia looked at the cats, the cats looked at Mia, and no one seemed to be able to drum up enough energy to care about the other. It was all horribly anti-climatic. (Not that I wanted barking dogs and puffy cats chasing each other all over the house, mind you, but a little America's Funniest Home Videos type of excitement wouldn't have been too much to ask, now would it?)

Actually, the whole dog-sitting thing is going a lot smoother than I had anticipated. I figured, being such a big dog and all, that Mia would completely turn my world upside-down while she was here. (Jenny left three pages of typed instructions on Mia's care, so I was a teeny bit concerned at first). But it turns out that Mia's pretty mellow, and just kind of does her thing with minimal interference from me. She likes to go out in the backyard, and she takes trips to the mailbox with me, but other than that, she's basically content to just hang out in the living room with us. In that, she's very cat-like. (Well, the cats don't go on trips to the mailbox, of course, but everything else is pretty cat-like). If it ever quits raining here, I'd like to try taking her on a walk around the neighborhood, just to shake things up a bit.