I'm so glad you people are around.

I'm running visualizations like Awkward Yeti, with Heart bouncing around after butterflies and occasionally running into Grief, a quiet shrouded figure who makes every room a little bleaker. But the butterfly is still fluttering around, catching Heart's eye. (And poor Gallbladder needs a hug and someone to appreciate the stones he makes)

Gives stern look to the part of your brain that says not to enjoy. Everyone that loves you, here or gone, wants you to have a full and happy life. Celebrate and be grateful when you catch yourself having good moments.

I just felt the need to boost the signal on Laura's wisdom.

Let me ask a reality check question...

If you had a major rat infestation in you house. So major as to be visible without actually having to look for it...and you had two 180lb Great Danes...would you leave on a European vacation and expect your dog walker to deal with it?

When informed that the exterminator you requested your dog walker deal with says that there is risk of Huntavirus...and you VET says that he fears Leptospirosis...both of which are potentially lethal to humans and dogs...would you ask your dog walker to 'just throw out the dead rats the exterminator traps?

Yeah. I didn't think so.

The owner says taking the dogs for medical boarding is 'not optimal' and they apparently have no one else to help.

The hammer of common sense has fallen from my hand, right onto her head, via text.

Nope. Nopety, nope.

Either I hear from her by COB or I'm renting a car and driving them to the hospital myself. After I don a mask and gloves, that is. I think I even have an old pair of shoes I can throw away right after.

PEOPLE.

ICK

No, your rats are your problem (and the exterminator's). NOT the dog walker's.

I repeat: ICK.

What Toddson said. That is just all sorts of wrong.

That is absurd! Not optimal my ass. Taking off on vacation and expecting others to deal with your lack of responsibility is not optimal.

seeeriiiooously. ICK.

This is the second time I've been left to deal with a _known_ disaster while someone says, "I can't _not_ go!" ...on a vacation.

The boarding for those dogs will be at least 2K. I wonder how much cutting the vacation short would have cost.

The owner, who doesn't like to displease anyone, feels bad because we are known for being superheroes. There is a difference between being heroic and enabling foolish decisions.

The dog owners should be aware that endangering the health of their contracted employees opens them up for a *lot* of lawsuit should the dog walkers (heaven forbid) contract a disease from the house or the dogs. Getting the dogs out of the environment, further, treating the dogs prophylactically for both hanta and lepidoptera--not just to protect the humans that have contact with them, but for the dogs' own health--should be the next priority.

Yeah, the vacation is going to cost them a lot more than if they'd stayed home and taken care of things. How could they have been *living* in a home with visible evidence of rat infestation, and not acted before now? Humans, I swear.

This nasty cold I have started off a few weeks ago as a sneeze, and then morphed into coughing and chest congestion. Now, the cough is finally getting better, but I'm sneezing again. WTF, body? IOmemeN, I need to find the spoons and the motivation to go to Trader Joe's today so that I can actually cook dinner tonight, something I have seriously sucked at getting done the last few weeks.

A visible rat infestation doesn't just happen one day. Those people should have taken care of the rat problem the minute it started. It's obviously been going on for a while. What if the dogs are infected? What if the humans are infected? This is hugely irresponsible of them, and you and your company are being superheroes by taking care of it for them. Which is probably what they intended, when they left.