If you follow me at all you are probably already very familiar with Nadi, my lovely little doggo, and how much she really like people (especially me) and how she doesn't particularly care for other dogs due to her upbringing. While other dogs are normally thrilled to see another dog and perhaps they want to play, Nadi feels the opposite way. She barks at any approaching animal and if they get close to her she panics and kind of freaks out. She has only ever been attacked by another dog once and thankfully I was there to protect her by just picking her up and pulling my leg back like I was going to kick the other dog. I made exactly zero contact with that other dog but it ran away yipe-ing like I had launched it into the air. I had to explain myself to a bunch of Karens that night who refused to accept my explanation of how I didn't even tough the other dog.
Anyway, we are just two days away from Nadi not having roommates anymore and she is likely thrilled about that. What she doesn't know is that I will not be here either as I am going for a long vacation to visit my family. I haven't left her for more than a few days in something like 6 years so it will be interesting to see how she responds to this.
The above is Nadi's idea of proper roommates and she would much rather keep it that way forever.
Instead, we have 3 faces staring at me when I get my takeaway food instead of just one. Since these dogs are not my own, I almost never give them any people food and honestly, that is the way that everyone should be I think. For example, Nadi is allergic to prawns and one time someone without asking permission gave her some prawn and the next day Nadi's face swelled up and had to go to the vet. She also threw up many times. Don't give food to other people's dogs! You could be hurting them accidentally.
It's pretty difficult having 3 dogs because I, unlike their owner, don't feel that it is ok or good to keep them cooped up inside a small apartment all day long. I get them out of the house as much as possible but I can't possibly bring all 3 of them with me. The other night I took Charlie out with me and the people here thought it was Nadi. I don't think they look anything alike but hell, I'm around Nadi every day.
The other dog, while cute, is far more problematic than Charlie.
This dog is Allee and even though she is really cute she makes everything more complicated. She has some sort of quite serious respiratory issues and seems as though she is struggling to breathe most of the time. I can't take her for long walks because of this and the owner is even worse about this and I don't think she ever walks Allee. Allee is seriously overweight because of this and that's not good for any dog. Allee also gets into everything and will eat anything that is on the floor. The other day she had a choking issue because she was eating sunflower seed shells and couldn't swallow them. While I hesitate to call any dog "stupid" this dog is seriously stupid. She also has no spatial awareness and is always nearly getting stepped on. I have nearly completely busted my ass many times since she has been staying here and I think that the owner of Allee shouts at her a lot because when I nearly fall she cowers in fear and runs off. I have never struck Allee because that is something you should also never do to another person's dog.
I think that the owner of these two dogs got the first one as some sort of emotional support and I know from experience that especially if you are living on the road as an expat, having one dog is really tough, having 2 dogs in my mind is just insane. I struggle to provide what I consider to be a reasonable level of activity for Nadi, but with 2 other dogs here it takes hours out of my day getting all of them out of the house for walks. This is especially true with the two visiting dogs whose rather irresponsible and lazy owner doesn't ever walk them, so they don't really know how to do it. They are both constantly getting the leash wrapped around everything in sight, have no awareness of cars or motorbikes, and are constantly choking themselves by pulling too hard on the leash. If you have a dog you probably already know that this is quite common with puppies, but they grow out of it. Both of these dogs are 5 years old or more and they haven't grown out of this simply because the owner almost never takes them on walks at all.
Speaking of walks. I found this meme the other day on 9gag
I think this is true of almost any dog. Even if they don't know very many words, I think most dogs understand the word "walk." If I so much as say something that even somewhat resembles "walk" Nadi will go absolutely nuts. Sometimes I think she is manipulating me or guilting me into taking her for a walk even though it is not walk time. She probably is, Nadi is really smart. Nadi will attack her tail and get "tippy-taps" when I talk about walks.
While I am probably being a bit harsh in my criticism of these two visiting dogs it has kind of been an eye-opener for me as to how good of a job of raising Nadi that I have actually done. She has a far better life than these two and while I am sure they will be happy when their owner comes back, I would imagine that they will miss me because I show them a lot more attention than their owner does and of course all of them get to go on something resembling a walk, every single day. I can't take the two visitors out of the neighborhood because there are so many road dangers here and very little in the way of useable sidewalks. So normally I just walk them around the 400 meters of neighborhood that we have here in my immediate vicinity. They appreciate it.
I'm not going to miss them when they leave but I am really concerned about Nadi's mental well being while I am away. Thankfully a friend of mine is staying with her in my condo the entire time and I know that he is a good guy and will watch after her very well. Despite being around 6 foot 5 and 250 lbs or so, this guy turns into a child whenever he is around small dogs. In my mind, that is the perfect candidate for dogsitting. I'll still miss Nadi a lot while I am gone and will worry about her constantly.