::03:26:08::

::: Pet Sitting Good Times. A Night With Apollo! :::

I am a professional pet sitter. The pet sitting market has exploded all across the U.S.A. along with the nationwide phenomenon of owners taking their dogs with them while traveling and staying in over-night lodgings.

Many hotels provide a list of sitters for their guests with dogs so that the owners might have a little private time away from fido once or twice during their stay.

Recently, I was called to sit at a fancy Hyatt Regency. The room was an $800 a night suite.

Upon arriving I was greeted at the suite door by the female owner of my new charge. I was escorted down a hall to the living room which opened up the bedroom. There on the majestic looking bed was the most majestic looking hound I have ever seen; behold "Apollo!"

Apollo was a one hundred and fifty lbs. ( at least ) white with black spots Great Dane!

We stared at each other in mutual awe and apprehension. Me at Apollo's size and he at my aged and decrepit appearance.

I had never pet sat anyone as large as Apollo and I'm sure he had never been sat by someone as old and weathered looking as me.

Apollo bounded off the bed and we cautiously circled each other. He like an anxious unbusted bronco and me like a knee-shaking cowboy wondering how in the world I'm supposed to handle this humungus horse-hound.

Apollo's owners interrupted our little feeling-out tango by leaving and Apollo raced to the exit door right behind them. He sat at the door whimpering after they left for another fifteen minutes.

Fine with me. I settled in on the living room love seat couch and turned on this luxury suite's big screen TV. I was happily flipping through programs and movies I had never before seen on regular TV. Odd ones, sports ones, nasty ones ... boy, these rich people guest rooms have it all.

Apollo was staying to himself at the end of the hallway and I figured if he felt safe there...that was okay because I felt safe where I was.

Then without warning, Apollo suddenly rose up and strode very deliberately back down the hall and stopped between me and the TV. He then turned around and instantly dropped the biggest b-m bombs I have ever seen right in front of me on the living room floor ! I jumped up shouting "Whoa...Whoa boy!" But it was too late !

Apollo then sauntered over to the open bedroom, jumped up on the bed and sat there staring at me with a look I assumed was one of vengeance "take that you old freak!"

I stared back at him in confused shock. I thought "Man ... what have I got myself into here?"

I managed to gather myself enough to find a trashcan and collect these enormous...logs. I then opened the patio door and threw these out onto the adjoining golf course with the idea that the next morning grounds crew might see these as horse droppings and use them in their lawn clipping mulch piles. I figured this was the correct green thing to do and it saved me from suffocating on their gagging odor.

I then cleaned the carpet as best I could, sat back down on my little couch and staring at Apollo staring at me wondered whether I might be over my head with this fearsome looking fido.

His disgusting defecation was the boldest and baddest act ever directed at me by any dog I had ever pet sat and I was concernedly contemplating what he might pull next!

Would I be his next snack? Wait a minute... Aha! That's it! The old "snack" approach...that always works.

It wasn't hard to find his duffle sized bag of goodies. I found bulk boxes of things like 18 inch long jerky chew sticks, mammoth milk bone biscuits, etc.

I broke open and pulled out hand fulls of these and with Apollo watching my every move ... waved them seductively around and pretended to take hungry bites from these myself while making moaning in delight sounds... "Mmmmmm, mmmmm, Ohh Apollo...these are sooo good... mmmm. "

The combination of my orgasmic moaning chewing and swallowing sounds and the smells of his favorite snacks finally wore down Apollo. He slowly came over to me and I calmly gave him one after another of these. After about 20 chew sticks and a dozen large milk bones Apollo seemed to come around to a more accepting and tolerant attitude toward me.

He actually sat down next to me and allowed me to pet and even brush his pretty white coat. I had to do this in stages. I'd sweep along his front half and step back a step or two and sweep his hind back.

Before long Apollo was actually acting down-right friendly. While watching mesmerizing TV shows like the History Channel's "Modern Marvels - High Tech Saw Sharpening" I just petted and scratched Apollo over and over and he would stretch and yawn with a very relaxed and satisfied " a little lower on the left will ya?" look.

Eventually Apollo got up and decided he wanted to get up on the somewhat small love seat sofa I was sitting on and get in my lap! He was so determined and I was so afraid of losing our chumminess I helped him do this. It was like trying to get a whale on board a dingy.

We pulled and tugged and twisted and turned and squeezed. Somehow we both got intertwined in just such a way that Apollo's legs were stick up and out over the top of the couch back and his 50 pound head could rest on my lap.

We remained in this cozy position long enough for my legs to go numb and Apollo to doze off. It was a little uncomfortable for me at times and I had never felt a room shake so much ( Apollo's snoring ) since the great Loma Prieta earthquake back in 1989. But, I was incredibly taken by how much our relationship had changed from when I first walked into Apollo's room hours ago.

I was so emotionally touched from the experience and taking in the scene before me that I started to get tears in my eyes.

Overcome with unexpected sentimentality I pulled up Apollo's humungus head and cradled this next to mine just as his owners were silently opening the door to their room and catching this picture of Apollo and I amorously hugging each other on this dinky love seat with his legs sticking out all over the place and closed eyed looks of love.

"Uh Hum!"...Apollo's male owner coughed...and both Apollos head and mine popped up with a look of embarrassing surprise.

"Looks like you two bonded." He said.

I stuttered and stammered as Apollo and I slowly unraveled ourselves and stiffly got up off the love seat.

Apollo's owners kept looking at each other in kind of a perversion shock type way and then the wife quickly shoved a wad of dollars into my hand and said very reservedly "thank you." That was it.

I started walking toward the door. I heard a whimper. I turned around slightly and noticed Apollo gazing at me forlornly. I gave him back a look of appreciated giving friendship. Apollo had shown me that Great Danes are actually just great big lap dogs that are are just fragile and afraid when the are left by their owners to be alone with first time strangers. I also knew his b-m barrage was not the act of a dog trying to threaten or bully an unknown pet sitter, rather the ultimate expression of these fears on his part.

I looked at the owners. They both had animated expressions of disgusted "egadness" on their faces. But that was okay. Apollo and I knew we had both been given something special to and from each other that would stay with us the rest of our lives.

Written by: ~ Joe Bauer

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