Double your pleasure, double your fun

Day three double-dogsitting in Montreal, and I've got the sniffles. It's not so terrible, really. Eska is sitting at the foot of my bed for an uncustomary daytime lounge. She feels my pain, I think. If Bruno weren't so depressed about my parents being away on vacation, he'd be up here too. Wisely, he's chosen to take advantage of their absence and do his lounging on our white couch. He knows it's off-limits. He also knows he's too big for me to drag off of it without breaking an uncomfortable sweat.

Clever.

He makes it up to my room for visits when he detects, somehow, that I am talking to Brian on gchat. He gets terribly jealous or protective or something, and needs to make his presence felt. Eska is the same way, or was, in the brief period during which Brian was over at the apartment regularly, which would make sense: Eska is an only-dog-child and is accustomed to being the center of my attention. It's only normal that she would be territorial when other people were up in her grill, no matter how much she loved them.

Bruno is just some kind of crazy ESP guerilla dog. I'm surprised Fab ever made the cut.

Anyway, it's their fault if I'm sniffly. I took them out this morning, as usual, for their AM walk before it started to rain, confident that I had beat the ominous forecast. I hadn't. It started to come down just as Eska and I began our sprints across the community soccer field, Bruno following close behind with his deflated soccer ball, waiting for me to kick it out for him every now and then. I mean, I'm thankful that he cut the free-range time short: his spontaneous jump in the swamp which caps soccer-field time came much earlier than usual, and likely because he sensed that I was dying out there. He's such a good shoo. The rest of our walk was still 30 minutes long, though, or something like that, under what turned out to be more than just your run-of-the-mill drizzle.

Eska is sleeping peacefully: maybe she has the sniffles, too.

There has been much doggy-love here at the Zampini manor in the past three weeks or so. Both my shoos have been getting along. Eska is learning to share her toys nicely. Bruno is more patient with her eager teeth. Sometimes, we catch them sleeping so close to each other, it strikes a beautiful doggy chord in everyone's heart.

Two dogs are not unmanageable. It is a daily struggle reminding myself that they would be if I lived alone, in a small apartment, without a yard.

... Well would you look at that? ...

Uncle Army is having less of it than I am - not hard, considering how much of it I'm having. His niece ate his headphones and a raw burger he was about to barbecue yesterday: he was most unimpressed with her. What can I say? She doesn't like it when I leave her in favour of the bathroom or Fiona. She's a bit of a baby that way. Uncle Army has requested that I leave the manor and take my dog with me, but I am unprepared to deprive Bruno of his girl just yet: he loves her so much. You can tell.

Motherhood will be difficult, I told Bruno today, and it's true: how can I ever be absolutely certain I am showing both of my shoos the same amount of love and affection, while making sure I am attentive to all of their special needs?

Now imagine they were human.

Well, it might be easier if they were human, because they could at least tell me if I were doing it wrong. Right now, the only things I have to go by are the looks on their little doggy faces.

Dora is losing her shit.

What's nicest about double doggy duty, I guess, is the warmth. It's unseasonably (and unreasonably) cold in the True North, and naps would be long without my furry comforters.