Maggie, the Pseudo Pet

We love our new digs, and one of the perks we enjoy here is Maggie, the Pseudo Pet.  Let me explain.

We’re renting this fabulous house from some fabulous people we know.  They don’t live here anymore and haven’t lived here in awhile.  But they had this dog named Maggie who was a little too old and attached to the area for a move across two states, so they left her here with the neighbors across the street.  But to Maggie, this is her home.

When I first came to walk through the house, Maggie was sitting under the tree in the front yard.  No one else was here, yet the old girl was playing sentinel—Maggie, the pseudo guard dog.  

Since we’ve moved in, she’s become a regular visitor.  She scratches on the front door to alert us, and then barks if we don’t answer.  And because I explained to my children that there were no dogs in our immediate future, Maggie is win-win.  The kids get to love-up a dog without doing dootie duty.  I get a pseudo guard dog that requires no feeding (okay, okay, so we have a large supply of doggie biscuits she seems to enjoy).  And we all get a sorta pet that greets us when we come home.  Being Maggie's pseudo owners must be a lot like grandparenting.  We feed her scraps and doggie biscuits, let her jump onto the furniture, and then we send her home to her real owners.  

Did I mention that she has our meals timed and comes right when the table is being cleared and children are carelessly dropping scraps to the floor?  (I love a psuedo pet that doubles as a vacuum.)  

Now if we could just get her to play fetch she’d be perfect.

p.s. Those are hearts in her eyes, not an evil satanic laser glare.  Promise.