Dog-walking Dog

I've been part of the gig economy for about a week now and it's not too bad. There's some anxiety that's added to my life by having to keep an eye on my phone for jobs, and then trying to figure out as quickly as possible whether they fit my schedule so I can request them before they disappear. I've done a decent job of that, with only one oops so far that Wag! kindly let me work out.

I've done seven walks so far and now have a couple of recurring walks coming up that are, respectively, four times a week and twice a week, and I'm grabbing one-time jobs as appropriate. I've made about $120 so far, and I expect the amount over time to increase as I go, though this is before-tax income and I have to set that aside myself as a 1099 contractor.

I've walked little white floofballs, an elderly black lab, a good-'ol mutt of some kind who would have followed squirrels right up the trees if he had claws, and more. I've seen some pretty neighborhoods and gotten a good five miles of walking in on a couple of days. I've only had one really disconcerting experience. I arrived at a walk and looked for the lockbox that the instructions said would be there. I walked all around the building several times and couldn't find it. I tried buzzing the unit and got buzzed in through the gate into the courtyard, so that was a relief. But then I buzzed from the door buzzer and got no response. I looked all over for a lockbox and couldn't find one, so I went back outside the courtyard and walked around the building more. Wag support was helpful, but didn't have info. Finally the owner texted me directly to ask whether I'd found the key since she saw that the walk hadn't started yet. She directed me back into the courtyard (buzzing me in again) and to the door to the building. The key was tucked up and around the metal lip of a window-balcony to the left of the door. Said window balcony was positioned directly above a similarly-sized window-well for a basement window, so even if I'd thought to crawl under the balcony and look for the key, I wouldn't have been able to. I had to reach up and around the balcony lip to find the box. So I started that walk about twenty minutes late, but it was ok. She and her little fluffballs are my four-days-a-week walk, and she asked me to just keep her key with me. That makes me vaguely uncomfortable, but is probably the easiest way to do it.

So it adds some anxiety to my life, but reduces some as well. That plus the fact that Danae has had a lot of recent work for me to do that mostly involves researching things for her online or helping her code articles for research has given me a nicely organized schedule that helps me feel like I'm getting enough work done that I can enjoy some time to myself without much anxiety.

Most - well, all - of that time has gone to Factorio, where I've disappeared to for the past week. I'm going to get back to playing with electronics again soon though. Just kind of waiting for the initial flush of excitement over things like nuclear power and fluid tankers to ebb....

Dog Stress - Concern Over a Dog's Condition/Treatment

Another stressful dog situation today happened with the same place I couldn't find the key last time. I started walking with the two dogs, but one of them was continually stopping to lick at a foreleg. I investigated and found that the stretch fabric shirt thing he was wearing was too tight around that leg and was rubbing his skin raw. I tried to adjust the position somehow, but the dog got defensive when I touched around there; and understandably so!

This is just a ten minute "potty-break" walk, so you'd think it'd be quick. I hope it will be in the future. Today, after getting back inside, I spent a while with the dog in question. I got the shirt off and looked at his foreleg, which seemed in good shape; just irritated where the sleeve end had been. So I tore the hole open just slightly at a seam and tried to put it back on. The dog was opposed to this idea and made his opposition clear. I spent fifteen minutes or so alternating between trying to get the shirt on the dog and calming him down when he got too agitated with me. I got several bites on my fingers which, while not of the actively trying to do damage variety, were definitely warnings, not play bites. But I finally got the shirt back on him and put him in his crate to calm down. Before closing it up, I leaned in close and got lots of kisses from him, so I don't think he holds a grudge.

I'm anxious that I did something wrong. That I misinterpreted the dog's behavior, or that the shirt wasn't actually too tight, or that the owner will be upset that I tore the hole bigger, or will be offended that I talked about the problem in my report card (I did not mention that I enlarged the hole; just that I 'readjusted' the shirt). All sorts of stuff to worry about. But I believe I did the right thing with the information available. And as Danae said, the worst thing that could likely happen is that I'll lose this recurring job. I can live with that.

I've had continual low-grade anxiety as I get used to all this new stuff, and incidents like this don't help matters. I hope it gets better as I go along and that this will be a growth process for me.