20190807.0430

My parents are away at a conference, so my wife, Ms. 8, and I are keeping an eye on their house and pet-sitting for them. For the latter, rather than having us pop over to their house twice a day (our work schedules don't really agree with doing that), we're keeping their two dogs at our house. Our own dog, Cherry, is exceedingly happy about it; she's the sister of one of my parents' two dogs, Berry, coming from the same litter and adopted at the same time. And, as she was kept by my folks before coming to us, she's familiar with my parents' elder dog, Bud, as well. For their parts, Berry and Bud seem happy to be over, if a little bit disoriented by the change in location.
I understand it, certainly. They're not too weirded out, to be sure; I was still in high school and living with my parents when they adopted Bud from a local shelter, so I'm some twenty years familiar to him (and the little guy still gets around decently, for being in his twenties as a Dachshund/Chihuahua mix). We're over at my parents' house a fair bit, too, so all of us are familiar to Berry, as well. And, again, the dogs know Cherry from having lived with her. Even so, Berry and Bud seem a bit hesitant, while Cherry is almost oppressively giddy with them.
Anthropomorphizing is always problematic, of course, but I cannot help but think it's like staying with family for me. I know I'm welcome, of course; it's been said any number of times, and borne out over the course of years. But I also know I'm always aware I'm in someone else's space when I overnight at someone else's home. I know that things do not work there the way they do here, and I do not expect them to. But I am habituated to here, so being there means I have to attend more carefully to things than is normal for me. (I am lazy and try not to move things at home so that I do not have to look hard to find them.) It makes for some difference.
Even so, I am treated well by my family, as I work to treat them well when they visit me. That much is as it should be. I think I am treating my parents' dogs well; they're family, too, or as good as. And there is certainly something nice about typing this while Bud lies on the floor under my chair; it is a comfort to have an old dog there, resting at ease while I do what I feel the need to do. Cherry is always stirring when she tries to do it, distracting me from what I'm about, but she'll get there someday, I'm sure.