Babysitting, petsitting, what's the difference?

Before we left on vacation, we babysat my neighbor's little teacup Yorkie, Pita. Pita has lived in the neighbor for several years now, gets along well with Elliot, and loves the girls. She is quite tiny, loving, and has a habit of running around in circles counter clockwise when excited. While she stayed at her house in the evenings, we felt we she needed us socialization and brought her over to hang with us during the day after her breakfast.

While she has the run of her backyard via a doggie door and doesn't usually get walked, she loved to walk. I would come over after breakfast and she would run around me in counter clockwise circles as soon as I said the word, "walk". She sprinted down the street on her little legs faster than Elliot ever does unless he is chasing a car, plane, or imaginary things in the sky. I had to practical run to keep up with her, and decided that I needed a dog like that to lose weight since my dog refuses to walk in the summer heat.

Pita would come back from the walk eager to bother see Elliot and she would drink from his water dish, play with his toys, and run counter clockwise around him in circles while his head spun round and round trying to keep his eyes on her. By the third day, he would just sigh, climb on the couch, and pretend he was asleep, trying his best to ignore her.

 

Pita quickly got into her own routine. She would mess around with Elliot, sit with me while I had my coffee, and then she would disappear into Darcy's room where she would watch her sleep. When Darcy would wake she always gave Pita plenty of attention and good belly scratches. By the fourth day of that someone got a tad jealous. Darcy, of course, loved all of the attention by both dogs, especially Elliot who is usually loving on his own time.

She spent her afternoons with the kids, napping when possible, staring out the front door for intruders, and entertaining us with her counter clockwise running. She would come outside to watch us swim, but she didn't join Elliot in his barking and splashing, preferring instead to sit in the shade and watch.

  

We would walk her again in the evening and then take her home for dinner, returning later that night to play with her and get her ready for bed. By the end of the week we decided that had we not been leaving on vacation we would have told her owner we weren't giving her back.