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People plus pets makes it a full house

Fried RiceHeidi RiceGlenwood Springs, CO Colorado

“It’s going to be a full house here this week,” I informed husband-head recently. “Be prepared to share your space.”Husband-head looked a little nervous.”You mean, Bob Saget is coming here?” he said, scrunching up his nose in disdain. “I thought that show went off the air in the mid-90s.”But I wasn’t talking about the “Full House” TV sitcom. I was referring to the fact that we were having a house guest AND pet sitting at the same time, bringing the body count to three dogs, three humans and one cat under the same roof.”That’s more than the cast of Full House!” husband-head pointed out.But in real life, a friend of ours was coming up from Arizona to stay while he took care of some business in the area.And we were also dog sitting an older Lab-mix named “Pavlova” for some other friends.”Pav” as we call her, was not a stranger to us. We’d watched her before when she was much younger and we were happy to have her back.”Here’s her food, her bowl, her treats and her leash,” her owners said when they dropped her off. “Oh, and here’s some eyedrops she needs to take every day.”

Pav sniffed around the house while my own two yellow Labs, Weber and Wyatt, sniffed Pav.”Everybody is going to get along, aren’t we?” I asked in my best Richard Simmons’ voice after they left as I watched the three yellow dogs interacting.Just then, Wyatt snarled at Pav and I feared there would be a fight. “Who wants a TREAT?” I said, trying to distract them. “We don’t want to go to the VET now, do we?”Actually, we’d already been to the vet earlier in the week as Weber had an ear infection and now needed ear drops in his ears twice a day.Weber does not dig the drops.”He hides from me,” I complained to husband-head. “The dog thinks my whole mission in life is to torture him with ear drops!””Yeah, you’re kind of like Nurse Ratched,” husband-head calmly surmised. “Sometimes I hide from you, too.”I did not appreciate being compared to the bitchy nurse from “One Flew Over a Cuckoo’s Nest,” and I considered threatening husband-head with a lobotomy, which certainly put Jack Nicholson in his place.

That evening, I grabbed one of the little white bottles and cornered Weber to give him his medicine.”I don’t like this anymore than you do,” I assured the frightened dog.Then it dawned on me that my parents used to say that before giving me a spanking and it didn’t make the experience any better.Moments later, I realized that I’d made a big mistake.”Oh my God, I just put Pav’s eye drops in Weber’s EAR!” I confessed to husband-head. “Both the medicines are in little white bottles and I got them mixed up!”Husband-head looked at me in disbelief.”This is why it’s a good thing you’re not in the medical profession,” he summed up. I had to agree, imagining a scenario … “And again, Mr. Smith, we’re really, really sorry about removing your perfectly good kidney.”But at least I didn’t put Weber’s ear drops in Pav’s eyes.



Meanwhile, as the dogs adjusted to each other, our house guest had to adapt to the dogs. Because the spare room upstairs gets extremely warm during the summer, he had opted to sleep downstairs on the couch in the living room.And because the dogs consider the couch to be their domain – everything is fair game.”I woke up at 5:30 a.m. with my face being licked and a wet nose in my armpit,” our guest informed me when I asked if he had slept all right. “Other than that, I was fine.”A week later, our house guest left and Pav’s owners picked her up.”Wow,” I said to husband-head. “That wasn’t bad, but it’s nice that life has returned to normal.”Husband-head thought for a moment.”Although, you know the full house thing wouldn’t be so bad if Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen came over.”Heidi Rice is a staff reporter for the Post Independent. Her column runs every Friday. Visit her Web site at http://www.heidirice.com.


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