The time I was almost roommates with a Cocker Spaniel

About a year and a half ago I almost got a dog as a roommate. I'm not talking about how people living by themselves get lonely and decide to buy a pet. I am talking about how I was going to get paid $300 a month to have a Cocker Spaniel live with me.

 I was searching on Craigslist for roommates when I stumbled upon an ad for a long term pet sitter. A family had to move to Taiwan for a year and they couldn't take their dog with them (do they eat dog in Taiwan?). They couldn't bear to get rid of their dog, so they were trying to find someone who would keep it for cash dollars. In addition to the $300 you would get for letting Sadie sleep on a rug in your house, the owners would also pay for food and vet bills.

It seemed like a near-perfect set up. I had an extra bedroom and a little yard. I had always thought Cocker Spaniels were adorable. And okay, the most I had ever done was owned a Cocker Spaniel stuffed animal who did nothing but sit on my bed for years, but I had her since I was eleven years old. I had grown up with a family dog, but it was a strictly outside dog. She was very low-maintenance because we lived in the country so she had a lot of space to run around. We never had to take it for walks or scoop up poop.

I seriously contemplated getting Sadie as a canine roommate, thinking about how we could go to the park together, have girls' night, watch movies, and paint our nails. If she got annoying I could just tell her to shut up and she'd still like me, and I knew she'd never leave dirty dishes in the sink. But I found this ad during October, which is a dreadfully rainy month in Oregon. The more I thought about letting a dog roam in my backyard, the more I didn't like it. See, I have really poor drainage due to the clay soil my house sits upon. You walk out in the yard more than once a week and you've got a mud pen on your hands.

During this time of my life I was also gone from my house usually 12 hours or more at a time. It seemed really mean to keep a dog locked in the house for that long. I mean, I know what it feels like not to get to use the bathroom for four hours. I can't imagine three times that. I didn't desire a mud hole for a yard or pooped on carpets, so I decided that Sadie would have to find a different roommate. And that is the story of how I almost had a blonde canine for a roommate.