What makes my cat believe that the best place to be this time of year is lying on the branches of my Christmas Tree? Don't misunderstand. He doesn't actually want to climb the Christmas tree. He simply wants to be lying on the branches of it. I know this because he doesn't repeatedly go to the trunk of the tree and try to climb. He goes to the bottom branches and lifts his front paw and tries to stand on the branch.
When he broke my old tree, he was lying on the bottom branches exactly where he is trying to go now. I walked in the house and all of the bottom two rows of branches were angled down and touching the ground and Jingle was lying in the middle of them. I think it has something to do with his name. He may actually believe that he is a Christmas tree ornament....
The good news is that he has only knocked one ornament off so far. It did not break. Currently, Shiner has him preoccupied. They are chasing one another through the house thus allowing me some time to work on a blog and drink my coffee in peace. I took both cats to Mom and Dad's house last week for Thanksgiving. Normally, I would just leave them here and ask a friend to feed them or pay a pet sitting service to come over once a day. Using either of those options would have meant I needed to come home sooner than I did. I hate asking a friend to come over every single day for more than a few days. And I can't see paying a pet sitting service again until the travel business gets off the ground.
The cats do okay at Mom and Dad's house. The only issue is that they have a big alpha cat named Regis and anytime that Regis wants to come in which is usually twice a day, my cats have to be locked away in the bedroom. It is relatively easy to get them in there with a bag of treats. So, it is not a big deal. But during my visit, it brought up the topic of pet sitting services and how they work. The one that I have always used will do just about anything you ask.
Prior to the first official visit, the pet sitter comes over to meet your animals and walk through the house with you. She takes thorough notes on this visit and spends time just getting to know the animals. My initial visit was 8 or 9 years ago. Since then, I have probably used the service 20 or 30 times and never had contact with them again except on the phone. Only my cats know what their current cat sitter looks like. I think in the 8 or 9 years, they have had 3 different people take care of them from this service. The service tries to keep the same person with the same animals each time but of course conflicts come up and people no doubt, leave their employment.
On that initial visit, some of the things the pet sitter asked were where I keep cleaning supplies and products, where I keep extra cat food and litter, where I buy my cat foot and litter, where the cat carrier was kept and if there were any special tricks to getting Jingle into the cat carrier. She told me that she needed to know all of this in case I ever ran out of food while I was away or if there was ever an emergency that required her taking Jingle to the vet. I gave them a key during that initial visit 8 or 9 years ago and they still have it. They also have my credit card info on file. Now, when I am ready to leave town, I just call or email to begin service and they come over as many times a day as I ask to take care of things.
Some of the things they do while they are here are: Feed the cats and give them fresh water, scoop the litter boxes and sweep and clean up around them, play with the cats, feed the fish, water plants, open/close blinds, turn lights on or off. The will also pick up papers and mail and bring all of that in the house. I don't require that since my mailbox is secured and I don't take a paper, but they take fliers off of the door and bring packages in that FedEx or UPS may have left. When I come home, my trash has always been emptied and my floors are freshly swept. If I have to leave unexpectedly due to an emergency, I can call them from the road and start service immediately. They know where I keep the food so I don't have to sit it out for them in an emergency. If I run out of food while I am gone, they will go buy new food and add that expense to my bill.
They began a new service in the last year, I can't remember what it is called, Peace of Mind or something like that, where you can fill out some paperwork and they give you papers to distribute to your loved ones so that if you die the loved ones can call and start the service until arrangements are made for the pets. This month in the newsletter that they send out, they suggested that with the holidays and office parties, if you see that you will be late and can't get home to let the dog in or out or to feed him, you can call and they will drop by to let Rover out so that you don't come home to a mess.
Here's the deal, this service costs me $25 each time they walk in the house. There is an additional charge per pet and I am not sure what the initial charge for one pet is anymore. When I first started using them, it was $17 per visit for one pet. Until about a year ago, my cats required two visits a day. So, at that time, I paid $50 a day for cat sitting while I was out of town. For the price of cat sitting while I was away on a 7 night cruise, I could almost have taken them with me and gotten them their own inside cabin on the ship if the cruise line would allow it.
After we talked about this for a while, Mom asked why I got into the travel business instead of pet sitting since I love animals so much. So now I have been kicking this around for several days. I am now a travel agent and that makes me happy. But could I be a travel agent who also feeds and cares for your pets while you are away???? I don't know. I am currently working on a couple of trips where I am also going to be transportation for my clients to get to and from the airport here in Dallas. Hey! Don't judge! You do what you have to do. This is just something that I have been thinking about for a few days. It could make for one heck of a full service travel agency....
I'm going to get busy now. I have a pumpkin cheesecake to make for a dinner party and a Panama Canal cruise to research. :-) Have a great day!
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