A friend of mine needed to go out of town quite some distance away for a couple of weeks to go and have a family reunion combined with having a wedding ceremony. He has actually been legally married for quite some time but I think they rushed it for the sake of visa purposes and didn't have time for the ceremony. They had planned to do it a number of years ago but Covid fucked that up just like it did everything else.
So anyway, he is off to some village somewhere near Saigon that I have never heard of. It might be where his wife is from which might be customary in this country. I honestly have no idea if that is the case here or not.
So he asked me if I would look after his very well behaved doggo named Vader and since I know Vader quite well and know that him and Nadi at least tolerate one another's presence, I said that I would do it. So far things are working out pretty well with a few hiccups.
For the most part, Nadi doesn't care for other dogs. While there are dogs out there that get super excited about the presence of other dogs, Nadi would rather they all just go away. She isn't vicious or anything and never attacks any other dogs, she just for the most part doesn't want to play and wants to get away from them. Vader's disposition is kind of perfect because he is extremely chill and is content to just sit around all day, which is good because I have quite a small apartment and it isn't really conducive to a lot of playtime going on in it.
At first Vader was very confused and sad that he was in my house and not at his own with his owners, and I would expect almost any dog that is cared for properly to feel the same way. I know from my own experiences that when I left Nadi with people to go and visit family in the Western world that I would get reports that Nadi was refusing to eat and would just stare out the window all day waiting for me to come back. I think that Vader is kind of doing the same thing right now.
We haven't really been having any problems because Vader seems to respect the fact that this is Nadi's house and he doesn't try to get into her things or even lie down near her. Vader is considerably more social than Nadi is but it's kind of cool that he is respecting her personal space. I can leave the two of them alone with confidence that they aren't going to get into fights and also I know that both of them are not the kind of dogs to chew up everything while I am out. I am spending considerably more time at home to accommodate both of them though.
The issues we are facing is that Vader is a very finnicky eater and Nadi is the opposite. Nadi will chow down on almost anything you give her but I have also trained her over the years that she gets what I offer her to eat and nothing else. Therefore she basically attacks her dog food. Vader on the other hand is very fussy about what he eats and his owner told me that he will "only eat cat food" and unfortunately it is the wet kind that he prefers.
I don't know if you know anything about cat food, but it fucking stinks and just opening the package makes my entire house smell like dead fish for the afternoon. This isn't just a problem as far as the aroma is concerned but also because Vader doesn't seem emotionally comfortable enough to eat at all right now. So when I put his cat food in the bowl he sometimes licks it a bit and then just walks away. Nadi is waiting in the background ready to pounce on whatever he doesn't eat (which is most or all of it) and since she has long ear hair now her head stinks of cat food after every meal. I have decided now that instead of letting Nadi clean up whatever Vader doesn't eat that I am simply going to take the food away if Vader decides he doesn't want it. Nadi doesn't need any more food than I already give her and I wont tolerate her face smelling like tuna.
Another problem is that Vader was raised rather "free range" in that he is not accustomed to being on the leash. His owners feel rather confident in his ability to not wander off even though he has done so on a regular basis. This might be all fine and dandy for them because he will return to them when they call him, but I'm basically a stranger to Vader and the one time I took him out without a leash he wouldn't come back to me. Thankfully he didn't get out of my sight and I just hooked him up to the leash from that point forward.
I have decided that Vader will not be allowed off the leash at all for the rest of the time that he is here. I would not want to have to contact my friends at their wedding and inform them that I lost their dog. This is especially bad in Vietnam because dogs are frequently picked up and sold into the dog meat trade if they are found wandering the streets alone.
Pet sitting is not a favorite activity of mine but I know that this friend of mine would do the same for me should I ask him to do this for me in the future, which will almost certainly happen the next time I decide to visit family on the other side of the planet for a few weeks. I think that looking after Nadi is rather effortless though because she is old and doesn't really want to do anything other than walk around the block a few times then lie down the rest of the day.