Picture this...: Animal Kingdom

So, with the big “move in” of the fiancée came some living creatures-two dogs and two cats. I already have a cat, Kenny, so now we are a party of five…PETS. I have always claimed to be an animal lover. I love them at the zoo, I love them in the yard, I love them when I see them playing with kids in a yard, I love them on the leash and I love them at someone else’s house.

Yes, I already know that I said I have a cat. Kenny was just sooooo cute when he was found in the engine of someone’s truck by a co-worker. He was sooooooo cute when we were taking care of him at the radio station until he found a home. He was soooooooooo cute that I brought him home. The kids loved him. I was border-line in how I felt. Kenny (first named, Zorro) was into everything. Nothing was off limits. My clean house was a world of discovery for Kenny and out of the humans living in the house; I was the only one cleaning up after him. When he came to live with us, I also had a rat terrier named, Button.

I must have issues with naming pets (the kid’s names came fairly easily to me) but not the pet names. Button’s full name: Button Merry Jane Ladwig. Button because Dylan thought her face looked like a button, and B.J. wanted to name her Belly Button, and Merry because Lauren wanted to name her Merry Christmas (we got her in October-makes sense as a three year old, though) and Jane because then Lauren wanted to name her Mary Jane. I lost Button in the divorce, so I was the proud owner of Kenny (who has mellowed out a good bit in the last few years). Enter Bill’s pets: Gordon-dog, Lola-dog, Malcolm-cat and Pickles-cat. Bill must have issues with pet’s names as well as he has multiple nicknames for them all-I can’t keep up.

We have had to ease the pets into my house. I was not ready for all the animals. I was worried about the smell (I don’t want to live in that house that smells like pets that no one wants to come over or let me know that my house smells); I am worried about the pet hair and the litter boxes. That is a lot of poop.

I have had my moments: the day I came home to Gordon taking everything out of the garbage and chewing it up, the day that Lola got startled and jumped on my face while I was lying on the couch, the day Pickles licked my bare leg for the first time to rub herself on it to clean herself (cringe here) and the day that Malcolm scared me by not only finally coming out of the basement, but rubbing me while I was watching TV in the dark.

So, there have been adjustments, but none like the ones that I have encountered while Bill is gone traveling for the week for work. You see, our deal was with the entrance of all these pets that he was the sole owner of any messes that they made and he was in charge of taking care of them. Did I say he is gone for a week???? That means I am scooping poop, walking dogs, picking up dog poop, and doing a lot of talking to the animals. I am not comfortable carrying on conversations with pets and trying to figure out what all their complaining sounds really mean.

Today, I am leaving for Iowa. I had to get up early, pack bags, eat breakfast and TAKE CARE OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM.

Here are the events of my morning, broken down.

I get up early and start hauling things downstairs…only to discover this:

I clean that up and went to take the dogs out. Seems that Bill never told me that Gordon doesn’t do rain. He stood huddled under the garage roof in a standoff. I didn’t win.

I come back in needing to break into my Secret Santa stash.

I wash it down with this.

I am shocked to see the cat that never comes out of the basement, Malcolm, is at the top of the steps meowing annoyingly at me. I get it. It means come downstairs, something’s up. Malcolm, it seems has stopped covering his poop up in the litter box and is distressed that the pile of diarrhea he left me is not covered up. So, I cover it up. He stops making all the racket and I realize that I might just have become a kitty whisperer.