The Story of A Retired Pet Sitter

Who let the dogs out?? Probably me.

My whole life I've loved animals, probably more than humans. When I was young, I wanted to be a veterinarian so I could snuggle with cute animals all day, but it never really hit me that these animals would probably need care or be hurt. One day my cat Tiger came home after being in a terrible cat fight with his entire ear dangling off and all I could do was bawl my little 9-year-old eyes out because my poor Tiger kitty was hurt. That was the day I realized I could no longer pursue my dream career as a veterinarian. So here I am 13 years later, still searching for a job that I can snuggle cute animals, when I come across a job in Atlanta looking for a full-time pet sitter. Umm hello, playing with cute doggos and kitties all day? Where do I sign up?! But as my only Mallory luck would go, this dream job went down hill for me pretty quickly.

This meme pretty much describes my animal-lover personality:

I found a full-time position with an awesome company that allowed me to go to animal clients each day and spend time with pets of all kinds. I would see every animal you could think of from dogs (oldies and pups), kitties (purrers and hissers), lizards, birds, rabbits, you name it and I probably played with it. And the company I worked for had the best and sweetest people you will ever meet in your life. I thought I had for sure found my calling in life. Sure I had to walk dogs in the pouring rain and sure I had to scoop kitty litter boxes every day, but this job was so fun and low maintenance. I got to sleep in every day, made really good money, and met awesome people along the way. You may be asking yourself: "How could things possibly go wrong?"

My first mishap happened when taking care of three adorable poodles. Now remember, I am in Buckhead, AKA the richest zip code in the south. The houses I would visit were houses like you would see in movies, million dollar homes, and this house was no different. When I arrive to the house I immediately smelled the most fowl odor coming from the dogs room and instantly realize that this would be a fun visit. I walk to where the three pups were and the room looks like a battlefield of smeared poop. These dogs had smeared poop EVERYWHERE. I kept calm, grabbed toilet paper, and wiped up the poop fiesta the dogs had played in. While trying not to vom, I quickly flushed all the toilet paper and began cleaning up the dogs.

A couple of seconds later I hear dripping water.. I hadn't turned on the sink. THE TOILET WAS OVERFLOWING INTO THE FLOOR. Now here is little old me, holding three poop covered poodles in a house I've never been to before watching helplessly as water flows into the floor. "What do I do, what do I do, what do I do?!?!?!" I thought to myself. So I ran around the house in search of towels. After checking almost every nook and cranny in the house I finally found towels and arrived back to the scene to find the three dogs having pool party in the toilet water on the floor......... honestly I shouldn't even be surprised by my luck at this point in life. I did all I could to make the situation right, I cleaned up all the water, polished up the poodles, and put my best plumbing skills to work. Let's just say I've never been back to that house.

I wrote this incident off as just an unlucky situation (nothing new for me) and continued my dream career as a pet sitter. More small incidents took place, ones that probably don't belong on the inter-webs, but I continued to think that this was my dream job. The event that caused me to hang up my leashes for good was a scary one.

It started one regular morning when I was going to visit a house with two dogs I hadn't visited before. One was a pitbull mix and the other was a small white terrier mix. The owners had warned me that one time the big dog had attacked the little dog, but assured me that it wouldn't happen again. I should have known from my luck that pretty much meant it would happen when I was there.

I walked into the house and the pit wouldn't stop barking at me. I gave her a treat in hopes that she would chill but that didn't help. All-of-a-sudden I looked over and she had grabbed onto the little dog by the head and was throwing her around like a little rag doll. (This image still haunts my mind) I screamed and she let go and re-gripped her bite onto the neck of the little dog. Pitbull's jaws are no joke so I knew that if I didn't intervene, this little pups chances of survival were pretty slim. I reached my hand into the big dogs mouth and pulled its jaw apart to let the little dog go and he bit down onto my thumb. My thumb and the little pup immediately streamed with blood, but no one was deathly injured. I separated the two dogs, called my boss, and alerted the owners. We took the small dog to the vet and I headed to urgent care thinking I had a broken thumb. All in all, I ended up with a bite through my fingernail and a couple of punctures around my thumb, the small dog had to have stitches, and the big dog had to be quarantined for 10 days to examine her behavior.

After this incident, I sadly decided that this job wasn't for me. I wouldn't take back a second of my exciting month as a pet sitter. I'm so grateful that I was able to find this opportunity right after moving to Atlanta to help get me on my feet and help acclimate me with the city. S/O to my amazing boss Heather for the fun memories and taking me as a part of the company family! Here are some pics of my cute animal clients :)

Just an update on what I'm going to do now: I have found a full-time office position that I start this week with an awesome company! So sad to leave the fun animals, but super happy to start this new adventure!

Thanks for reading!

-A retired pet sitter