When I agreed to spend an extra week at home before the start of the spring semester in order to watch the pets, I neglected to remember that that would mean eight pets. That’s right, eight: my dog, my parent’s dog, our two older cats, our two kittens, my fish, and my dad’s fish. I love animals, and would gladly devote my life to their care. Which is exactly what I have done for these three days while we're alone.

My parents hadn’t even left the driveway when their dog, Foxy, managed to get up on my bureau and capsize the kittens’ food. Having cleaned that up, I put Foxy in the crate for her nap and took my dog, Stark, to the dog park. Fun fact: when snow melts, there’s a lot of mud around. After an hour of romping around, Stark was finally tired for the first time in days and in desperate need of a bath. Turns out, he loves puddles. He eats them, he drinks them, he rolls in them, and he tries to dig them. Luckily there’s a hose outside the dog park and a seat cover in the back of my car because his white spots were now black spots.

The easiest part of the day is when they’re all asleep. This happens more than you’d think and is often when I try to get some work done. That is until one of them wakes up. My kitten, Toothless, decides that being the only animal awake means it is the perfect time to sit on my head and continuously climb back there if removed. (And my father thinks she’s not friendly.)

Feeding time is the most exciting. I can’t have the kittens loose or they’ll eat the dog food and throw up, you can’t leave the dogs unattended because Foxy will eat Stark’s food because he eats slower, and good luck trying to get the older cats into the laundry room to eat their food because they’re scared of all the other animals. It’s fun, actually, once you get the routine down. I'll find the kitten’s jingly toy and lure them into the bedroom where they get locked up with their food. Then, I'll feed the dogs, walk the dogs, and let everyone free. Easy. Except if you don’t do it that way. Then it’s chaos. Or if like this morning you feed one dog in the garage and neglect to notice they didn't finish. Yay for two walks. At least they're tired now.

Walking the dogs is it’s own fun challenge. Foxy has a 20 ft long retractable leash. Stark has a 6 ft leash. Stark is still a puppy and walks in zigzags. Foxy walks, stops, walks stops, walks, stops, and knows just how long her leash is so that you can keep walking uninterrupted. Result: tangles; lots of tangles. Especially if we meet another person or dog because Stark is a big scaredy cat and tries to hide behind me wrapping me in leashes. It’s worse if I’m trying to play Pokemon Go at the same time. But hey, I’ve caught a lot of cool things lately with the puppies help. I’ve also almost tripped a bunch and been turned into a leash mummy more times then I can count. But that’s life.

The pets bring excitement to everything, even doing the laundry! Here I am pulling stuff out of the front load dryer when the kittens start climbing in. Now after about a month of this I'm used to it, they climb in when there are clothes because its cozy and climb out when I've removed all the clothes because its no longer fun. But today the kittens discovered how to get into the top load washing machine. Everytime I turned around I'd here a large thunk and there'd be a kitten in the washer. I'd remove it and a few minutes later, another thunk. Eventually I left them in there for a little longer then they preferred and they figured out how to get out themselves. Still when it came time to start the washer I had to extract Toothless from where she'd fallen asleep on the clothes to be washed (in the span of like a minute). Add washing machine to the list of things-to-be-kept-shut-at-all-times. Also on the list are the toilets, which they will jump in, and the trash can drawer in the kitchen, which one of them got stuck in yesterday. It's always interesting to come down for a snack and hear the trashcan meowing at you.

The moral of the story is, don’t volunteer to pet sit eight animals unless you really love animals. If you don’t adhere to their schedule, you will spend your days in a frustrating, chaotic pit of despair. The animals run the place, and you have to be okay with that. They will always win because they outnumber you eight to one. Though the fish do nothing, so it's really more like six.)