Babysitting Buddy
After a weeklong roadtrip with Buddy having to board with a bunch of other pups and not getting his regular due of play and attention, we prefer to keep him at home for a while rather than taking the more convenient path of putting him right back into day care. We are pretty sure that he doesn’t mind day care, but we are also pretty sure that he prefers being at home. I don’t know exactly how he acts when I am out and about and he is home with just Kim, but I know what he is like when he is left home with me and Kim is out and about. More than either Cecil or Betty, Buddy is more our dog than just Kim’s. that is mostly because his need for daily rough play time is such that I am the provider of that important part of his day more than Kim is. Kim is still the primary caregiver and I am fairly sure that in a pinch Buddy would choose her over me, but it is more balanced than it has with the other dogs, so I find myself wondering about how Buddy is handling the babysitting program overall.
Like all pets, Buddy is transitioning. He is transitioning from puppy to young adult dog. He is transitioning from one set of parents to us (it’s been 8 months now). And he is transitioning to understanding what we have to offer him and his daily lifestyle desires versus what Colean’s dog boarding house has to offer. I imagine some dogs want or need other dogs to play with, but Buddy is more about human play. I say that because as a very small dog (5.5 pounds), he suffers from self-image issues and wants to be considered a bigger dog. I don’t think he has any illusions of being in charge since he takes direction pretty well, but he sure doesn’t like being treated like a cute little dog. You could see that with the granddaughters when they were here. Their little Havanese, Abe, must have a similar sense about him, so they seemed to understand that hugging and picking him up like he is a doll would be a non-starter for Buddy. He has his playful moments when he will roll on his back and just want some loving, but if he is on all fours you are best to leave him on his own and let him make the decisions about whether to let you pet him or even play with him.
In general, Buddy has mellowed a fair bit. He still barks, but I think its more of a watchdog bark than a pain-in-the-ass yappy barking. He does well in party scenarios and he has had enough of them over the past six weeks for us to say that he is not troubled by large groups in the house. He will bark more with one unknown person coming in than with a whole houseful of attendees in residence. He is also much better with our house guests. He had a month to get used to Carolyn and the girls and both Kim and I came away from that seeing that Buddy really liked having them in the house. They provided an added resource for playtime for him and what’s not to like about that?
We have developed a normal routine with Buddy at this point. He, like all our dogs, stays in bed until Kim gets up. I get up before Kim and he does like to escort me to the bathroom door, but he will not leave Kim’s side until she gets out of bed. That doesn’t necessarily mean he is always patient, since he will stand on her shoulder and lick her face if she is taking too long to arise. He then comes into the bathroom to say hello to me before heading outdoors for a pee break with Kim. Once he is back inside, he knows Kim will be positioned in the living room to review her emails and update her worldview, so he comes galloping back in to find me wherever I may be. We all then sit in the living room with Kim giving him some love and me giving him some play time until its time for breakfast. Buddy is sometimes an enthusiastic eater and sometimes not. He likes to sit on top of the chair closest to the kitchen because he can control the play in both the kitchen and living room from that slightly elevated spot.
After that, Buddy’s day is a function of our respective days. Some days I head out for whatever errand or activity I may have scheduled and Kim will stay home with him. Other days, I will stay to babysit Buddy (he, like most adolescents, would prefer I say that I stay to keep him company) while Kim does her errands and activities. If we both want our freedom and ability to come and go as we please, Buddy could, theoretically, be left alone at home (we have no bad experiences with that), but Kim prefers to take him to day care since he seems to like that just fine and at least we know he is doing something other than lounging around. We have one other option when it comes to caring for Buddy. Kim has connected with a local family that has three kids who enjoy the opportunity to make some pocket cash and are therefore available for Buddy-sitting.
What a gig for these kids. The going rate for babysitting and therefore for Buddy-sitting is $15/hour, approximately twice the Federal minimum wage. That’s half of what I pay Handy Brad and 75% of what I have to pay a day laborer from the Home Depot parking lot. It costs $50/day for day care, which by my math comes to $6.25/hour for a group babysit. If Buddy overnight at day care, we pay $80, so the rate goes up slightly to about $7/hr. When we have someone like Natasha come to stay with Buddy for a week, we pay her $150/day and she gets room and board and limitless use of my truck included in that price, For that Buddy gets Natasha’s full and undivided attention as though we were here focused only on him. I don’t know how much Buddy knows the difference and since he doesn’t hate going to day care (there is that momentary separation anxiety when he gets dropped off, but that seems normal with any transition), it would probably just be smarter and more economical for us to use that for our Buddy care, But for reasons that have more to do with Kim’s sense of well-being, we tend to mix it up so that Buddy does not get dumped at day care all the time on an indiscriminate basis.
We, like most pet owners, overindulge our Buddy. We anthropomorphize him and think he will be happier staying at home and playing with the neighbor kids rather than be at day care with the other dogs. Buddy can’t tell time, but if we have been away for a week, as we were last week, we tend to err on letting him stay home more than taken to day care too much. We will adjust our schedules to stay home with him or we will get the neighbor kids in on the kid enrichment program (a young kid getting handed $80 for an afternoon’s work still strikes me as a good deal for the kid, who probably watched TV, had a snack and threw the ball a few times). I think that’s what anyone paying a babysitter tends to feel and Buddy-sitting seems no different.
Buddy is not a cheap date. I refrain from adding up all the Buddy-care costs we incur through the year since it would probably just annoy me. Both Kim and I are 100% happy that we have Buddy since we get the biggest kick out of him most of the time. He is far less a pain in the ass than a pleasure to have around, even though he is less cuddly and more feisty than not. I look at the cost of babysitting Buddy, whether outsourced or done ourselves, to be like a utility. You try and manage down your electric, propane and water bills, but ultimately you recognize them as a cost of living a good life. That’s pretty much the way we view Buddy. He is part of our good life.