Issue #43: That time I had to call the emergency Rover support line
A weekly dose of tidbits, spanning food, recipes, health, wellness, fitness, nutrition, destinations, books, advice, ideas and musings. Let’s spark conversation.
to read
I’m getting a bit ahead of myself here, but I’ve been following the Aussie weaning account boobtofood for at least a year, because I am (like a lot of people) naturally very interested in childhood nutrition. IMO, the maternal and infant nutrition modules in my masters degree were by far and away the most interesting of them all. Anyway, now that I’m expecting, I spent a ridiculous amount of money to get their books shipped to me. Milk to Meals and their latest Toddler to Table are now my coffee table books of choice, and I am digging learning about baby led weaning, all these zinc & iron-rich baby-friendly foods, and how you can use gelatin (grass-fed, pasture-raised, ofc) to turn any leftover puree into finger food.
to cook
This Instagram reel influenced me to buy an air fryer. Seriously, all it took was a microwave and a potato. But really, I have been lusting after one for a while, particularly since seeing an exhausted Dallas Cowboys cheerleader make a really quick, nutritious meal after she’d worked a full day as a nurse and been at practice all night. That, plus I found out that my old head chef now has one at home, and loves it. Mine has only just been unboxed, but I went for, dare I say, the Rolls Royce of air fryers, so expect to see more recipes utilising this longed for kitchen appliance.
to buy
Weekends have been filled with walks around the beautiful lanes of Jersey lately, which is as enjoyable for the fresh air as it is for the aspirational properties. I’ve been particularly enamoured with this one house that has an Autumnal wreath on their front door, complete with teeny tiny pumpkins. I’ve never seen anything like it before in my whole life. I love it, and I might just have to get one (for every season).
Does anyone remember Walk my Doggy? The app slash website that allowed dog-obsessed non-dog-owners to walk their neighbour’s dogs, with no money changing hands? As a 22 year old Londoner, I was enthusiastic about the idea of looking after a dog for an hour, and sometimes even a whole day, if I was lucky. It took looking after about four dogs before I realised that it was a place for over-burdened families to palm off their neglected pets (of which most were cocker spaniels) onto naive dog-lovers, at zero cost.
Fast forward to now, and the Rover app is all the rage. It’s like Walk My Doggy, but the users get recompensed for their services. I want a dog, but I’m not ready for a dog. I’m not ready for lots of the things that come with a dog - mainly the ongoing cost, but also the training, the grooming, what to do with the dog when you’re on holiday, at work, or going somewhere dogs can’t go. Anyway, earlier this year I was living in London, and working remotely full time. I wanted a fluffy companion to keep me company, to come with me on the runs and walks that were necessito to feel connected to the outside world.
Some wonderful experiences ensued. I looked after a charming, senior Jack Russell/Chihuaua cross, who had terrible bladder control, and a picture perfect miniature Cockapoo called Max, who quickly became a regular, and my number one. So, it was during a normal week of looking after Max that I received a last minute Rover request. A lady’s regular sitter had cancelled, and she wanted me to look after her Cockapoo, Otto, the following day. I told Christian, and expressed my hesitation about looking after not one, but two dogs. Being someone who had two dogs growing up, he had a very laissez-faire attitude and said something along the lines of two cockapoos being no different from one cockapoo. They’d keep each other company, be friends, and it would require zero extra effort, he said. Do it! He said.
With ever the rubber arm, I went for it. I explained to this lady that I already had a Cockapoo for the day, who was perfectly chill with other dogs. Would Otto mind being around another male Cockapoo? She assured me that he was also super chill, friendly, and that it would be completely fine.
So the next morning, my doorbell rings, and the husband is outside my flat with Otto and his bag of tricks. Upon greeting them, I realise that a miniature Cockapoo, Otto is not. He must have been crossed with a standard Poodle, because he is enormous. He looks like the dragon from The Neverending Story, and I try to hide my alarm. The husband starts telling me a few things I need to be wary of. He asks if I have a male partner. I say yes, and he says that I need to be careful if I’m sitting with Otto on the sofa, and my male partner looms over us. Otto might get protective and start growling. Hmm, I think, Otto’s not exactly sounding like the super chill, friendly dog I was promised, but Christian shouldn’t cross paths with him, so it’s probably not going to be a problem.
I say goodbye and bring Otto inside the flat, to meet Max. Some mutual sniffing goes on, and Max is characteristically non-plussed. Otto, on the other hand, is giving me anxious dog vibes. He frantically surveys the flat, and acts kind of weird around Max. I think (rather late in the day, in hindsight) that the best thing to do is to take them outside for a long walk, let them burn off some energy, and get to know each other outside. Is there some kind of turf war going on? Let’s hash it out in the park.
So I take them out, and neither is interested in the other for the entire hour. I come back, feeling like all will be well. There were no issues. I get inside, and take off their leads and harnesses. Max stays with me in the hallway, and Otto heads straight for the study slash spare room. He jumps up onto the double bed, so I tell him no. I’m using my best, firmest dog voice, telling him to get off/get down/off, but he just stares at me, panting, with what I’m sensing is an increasingly crazed look in his eyes.
I don’t really want to manhandle him off the bed, because he’s huge and at this point, unpredictable. I’m just stood in the hallway with poor, sweet, sensitive Max by my side, when I notice that Otto has an enormous erection. It is up there as one of the most disturbing, mentally scarring things I’ve ever seen. It is far too big for his body (in my opinion), bright pink, and alarmingly human-like. The double bed has four pillows and four big cushions on it, and he starts ferociously humping the pillows (and my beautiful buttercup yellow linen bedding), with this massive boner swinging around.
My get off/get down/off/stop commands increase in volume and number, as I simultaneously grab the pillows and throw them out of the room. Upon removing the final one, he goes to bite my hand, and I think ok, I’m just going to have to let him jizz all over the bed. And jizz, he did. It was like one of those daisies in the garden that swings around spraying water in every which direction. It sprays all over the bedding, the carpet and up the limewashed walls.
This escalating ruckus awakens my sleeping lodger, who comes out of her room to ask what the heck is going on. She has no idea I was even looking after another dog at this point, let alone the fact that he had been possessed and was ruining my furniture. She freaks out just as much as I did upon seeing her first erect canine penis, and soon enough we were, no joke, completely hysterical and beside ourselves over what to do.
We hatch a plan, to just get him out of the sex dungeon and onto the patio. There was so much jizz, it looked like he’d been swimming, but I get his harness and manage to get him in it. I clip on his lead and drag him outside. I put him on a long leash, put a bowl of water outside, and lock the patio door with the handle of the lead inside, so that he can’t go anywhere.
My plan was to try and calm the whole situation down. But Otto only became more stressed, having been banished to the patio. He starts barking extremely loudly, getting very het up. I call his owner, and get no answer. So I call Rover support.
A sweet American lady answers, and I tell her the sorry tale. First and foremost, she admonishes me for not orchestrating the two dogs meeting outside, on neutral turf. I admit that I have zero clue of dog behaviour and hierarchies, and I was going off the owner’s reassurance that Otto was ‘fine with other dogs’. Anyway, she then tells me to take a deep breath, and to try to calm down. My heightened anxiety is only making this situation worse. I then proceed to burst into tears.
At this point, the doorbell rings. I ask the Rover lady to hold, and open the door to a random man. He says he’s very surprised to see me - he didn’t think anyone was in. Did I know that there was a highly distressed dog trapped on my patio? He thought the dog had been abandoned.
I try to assure him that the situation is under control. The dog is on a long leash/he has food and water/I think he’s having an anxiety attack/I’m trying to contact the owner. The whole story was too long to relay in this exchange, but he said that everyone on the other side of the canal could see and hear the dog, and that ‘people were concerned’. Okay thank you bye, I said.
What followed was the longest four hours of my life. Neither Rover nor I could contact the lady or the husband. The husband’s phone was off (he’d been on his way to the airport) and the lady just wasn’t answering. My lodger happily took poor, sweet Max to her room, and the Rover lady told me to let Otto inside, to try to calm him down. I did, and he immediately jumped onto now my sofa, which was categorically not happening, so I configured the leash so that he could lie on a blanket and walk around in a small circle, away from my vulnerable furniture. He was, still, not a happy dog.
He only didn’t whine or bark if I was next to him, so I awkwardly arranged myself on the floor and tried to get some work done. Through the whole debacle, I’d been filling in one of my best pals and fellow Rover users in on the updates, who heroically decided to trek across London to come and offer her support. I am and will be, forever grateful!
Eventually, the Rover lady got through to the owner, who said she’d be there in an hour and a half to take him home. When I handed him back and explained the ordeal, she sort of said that this was all very surprising, and not at all expected behaviour. That may be so - maybe he just really didn’t like the look of Max, and really loved my buttercup linen bedding. In any case, I vowed to never take on too much ever again/to listen to my gut/to not take Christian’s doggy daycare advice.
Omg sounds horrific! But makes a great story 😄. Can’t believe he jizzed on your bed!!!