Buried Alive In the Litter Box

The misadventures of a Reno pet sitter, and the situations I have found myself in. Sometimes unbelievable and very funny, sometimes very heart wrenching. Included are stories of my own horse showing and riding debacles and successes, and the history of the cat rescues. There are conversations between me and my charges, and conversations between the pets and their buddies. Dogs destroying houses, a dog retrieval from a black bear that was up a tree, going through dog door numerous times for different reasons. There is so much more.

The misadventures of a Reno pet sitter, and the situations I have found myself in. Sometimes unbelievable and very funny, sometimes very heart wrenching. Included are stories of my own horse showing and riding debacles and successes, and the history of the cat rescues. Dogs destroying houses, furniture, back yard fences. The horrible winter weather having to navigated around, sometimes in white-out conditions. Or, having to traverse by foot to a customer's house in 3 foot of snow. Not only the typical day to day business of pet care, the situations of having to call locksmiths, or in one case being able to pick a broken key out of a lock. The breaking and entering a customer's house because some unwelcome guests decided to block any entrance to the house. There are the days that just about everything goes wrong, dog diarrhea, a key will not work, a chinchilla that had to be chased around in it's 3 tier cage for 15 minutes so it could be given medicine. Then there are the fires that rage on, and trying to get to the pets as roads are blocked off or completely closed off. Not only working to save one of her personal cats lives, but also working when so sick when I could not even drive, or being so sick and dizzy from vertigo. There is also the not so common events, such as grabbing the collar of a dog while he's under a black bear up a tree eating plums. The cat on a roof that would not come down, so I had to put chairs and boxes stacked on each other to get to a fence to get to the roof to get the cat down. Having to cork through dog doors because of many different reasons. Alarm codes or alarm remotes that wouldn't work. Dog bites, a cat punching me in the nose, my horse Rollo dumping me every chance he deemed necessary. There are the conversations between me and my own pets, my customer's pets, who are thinking they are quite superior to me. The conversations between some dogs and between horses and their stablemates are enjoyable. One of my cats thought he was a suave spy, and one of my customer's cats thought he was a hit man. Then there are the neighbors who are downright irritating, calling the dog catcher because of rift, or one neighbor that was completely wrong about who's dogs were barking. The list of the misadventures are long, and if anything will go wrong is is usually during Thanksgiving. A furnace goes out, or the wind blows open two sets of doors at a house with indoor only cats. Let's not forget about the water pipe that breaks during freezing weather, and the not so neighborly help. Horses, dog, cats, birds, with an occasional bear or snake, climbing fences, going through dog door almost too small to fit through...Holy Cow. Read it and weep, or laugh.

Living in Oakland, Ca. for the first ten years of my life is when I learned to ride horses. From there, my family moved to Oroville, Ca. where the inventory of horses grew, along with a herd of Black Angus cattle. From retraining Thoroughbred horses my parents had on the track, from racing to riding horses, I also hit every horse show locally with my own personal horse I show jumped. I have and still have cats, dogs, and a horse. For the past 40 years, I have lived in the Reno, NV area, where for almost 20 years, I have had my own pet sitting business. Before I started this business, I had the normal daytime job, weekends off, paid holidays, and paid vacations, then our company downsized, and I decided not to go with the flow and take the cut in pay, which was the deciding factor to do what I having been doing all these years. Now living with my husband Steve in a rural setting placed between Reno and Carson City, I have my miniature horse, a couple of chickens, a dog, and at last count 39 cats, most of which are rescues. Not to worry, we spayed and neutered every single one. One thing I have learned about this business, I never know what I will find going around that corner of a customer's house. It almost has the makings of a reality show.