one of the great things about having friends and roommates is free petsitting while traveling. for example, james took care of snuffy when i was down in norfolk for the bar; i’ve taken care of his cat when he’s out of town.

this week, we’re petsitting for randy & k, who are flitting about the orient. um, let me rephrase. we’re petsitting for murray, the attractive redhead featured in this post.

as far as dogs go, murray’s an easy one to care for. he doesn’t like being left alone (neither does snuffy), and he’s rather elderly (correct me on this – 14?). according to the resident doctor, he’s well into senility. when awake, he wanders aimlessly until he falls asleep (or poops in the house, as he did this morning – one reason to like tile floors). his hindquarters shake a bit, as do his front legs. he seems to be developing cataracts, as well.

we were warned that murray doesn’t work and play well with others. that posed a bit of a problem for the first few days, when snuffy tried to get murray to play with him. murray would wander, snuffy would trot merrily behind, his nose shoved as close to murray’s ass as he could get it. every few steps murray would turn around, snarl, and bite at snuffy.

snuffy looked confused. “what is this odd behavior, small fluffy one?” he seemed to be thinking.
(snuffy isn’t the brightest dog in the house, even when he’s the only dog in the house.)

but what isn’t obvious from these pictures is that murray is actually sitting on top of snuffy. the snarling has abated, and murray doesn’t seem to mind the fact that snuffy snores like a drunk linebacker. for his part, snuffy has ceased his attempts at play; he occasionally tries to engage murray more gently, but murray now ignores him and wanders on his senile way.