Sleep is for the weak in Diary

Well I haven't slept for two nights. I knew my new customer would be difficult, but I wasn't expecting it to be this bad. Max, the blind, epileptic German Shepherd, sleeps for about an hour or two, and then paces the entire house, whining for another hour or two and repeats. They have wooden floors so you can hear his nails clipping them when he walks. He comes upstairs, whining, clips into the bathroom, whining, has a drink, goes back downstairs, whining, clips around the living room and kitchen, whining, and whines back upstairs again. I tried shutting him in the living room but that just caused him to howl.

This is the both of them, in their favourite spots.

On the first night, River the fat Daschund got into bed with me, I mean, right down into the bed, and was snoring and pushing me out. I got to sleep at about 1:30, slept for about two hours, then Max started pacing and whining at 3:30am. I knew the sun came up early at this time of year, but I didn't realise the dawn chorus starts at 3:30am!

The whining went on for 90 minutes, after I'd opened the back door to see if he wanted a wee, I had to set up camp on the sofa as he would only settle in the living room if someone was with him.

So this was 5am and, from then on, he would settle for 30 minutes and then start his pacing and whining trick again.

The thunderstorm started at 7am, which is when River came downstairs to join me on the sofa, sleeping right on my stomach and giving me heartburn.

I was laughing at the people on Facebook complaining that the thunderstorm woke them up; I'd been awake for three and a half hours at that point!

The entire day of Saturday was wasted as I spent the whole day napping on the sofa, sleeping when the dogs slept and tending to their needs in between.

I told the owner I was coming home for lunch, which they had okayed as they said the dogs can be left alone for up to four hours and it's only a 10 minute drive away. So I came home for a few hours, did a bit of housework and spent some time with Jay.

Then came night number two. The owners told me today that they had sleeping pills for Max and that I could try those. So I popped him the pills (wrapped in his favourite corned beef) and went to bed. It took me a while to drop off as River kept on growling and barking at every noise, but then I had three hours of blissful uninterrupted sleep before being woken by his pacing and whining again. So I went downstairs, again at 5am, to see if he wanted to be let out only to be met by the most horrendous smell in the world. He had done a massive poo in the kitchen doorway and then trod in it a hundred times, spreading it all over the entire downstairs of the house. Honestly, it was that bad, it was hard to distinguish where it originated from.

So I spent the next 30 minutes trying to scrape it all up with tonnes of kitchen roll and then mopping over it four times. I kept rinsing the mop in the outside tap and mopping over the floor again as best I could. I put the kitchen mat in the washing machine and left the back door open from 5am until I left at 11am but the stink was still absolutely horrendous.

My roller derby class is just around the corner and starts at 11:30am but I had to go at 11am because I couldn't stand the stench anymore and, I'm afraid to say, the dogs were driving me a bit potty by this point. I sat outside the college for 30 minutes, enjoying the quiet and the sunshine.

I just wasn't feeling the roller derby love today and couldn't be bothered at all. I'm putting it down to my tiredness, I'm sure I'll be raring to go again by Wednesday's class.

After class, I went to back to the house as the owners were back and wanted to ask me how I got on. They were really apologetic, but I couldn't really complain as they had warned me, and those poor people have to put up with that every single night. They gave me a box of chocolates, a bunch of flowers and an extra £20 on top of my fee so that was a nice bonus!

I was honest and told them I didn't think I could do two nights in a row again, and they said it will probably only be one night in the future, they just need to catch up on sleep occasionally.

They were really pleased with me, though, and were listing all their friends who they're going to recommend me to, so it looks like I won't be short of work. This week alone I've already made £140 from pet sitting :o)

Definitely an early night, I'm going to sleep the sleep of the dead tonight before back to normal work tomorrow, urgh!

In other news, mam and dad have had a blue tit nest box in their garden and I bought dad a camera so they could see inside. They laid nine eggs, eight hatched and they brought five chicks to fledge. Mam says they fledged yesterday so they'll probably see them around the garden for a while :o)

Nine eggs a few weeks ago.

Almost ready to fledge a couple of days ago.

As they're in black and white, this is an example of an adult blue tit and a fledgling in their full colour glory. These pretty little things are only 12cm (4.7 inches) long.