Monday 28 September 2009

The Bank, a Butcher and a Dog


Thanks everyone for your comments on my last post. I appreciate your support and help and have taken all your comments on board and will keep you updated.

Anyhow, it's time to get this blog back on track with a few laughs.

I just didn't expect the local Butcher, Tom,* to be the one who would give me my next post.

Tom's daughter Anthea is currently in the UK for the next year with her cousin Tania on a working holiday.

They befriended an elderly couple who live in London and who they visit often. As the couple were going to visit their daughter in Spain they asked the girls if they would look after their old dog for a couple of weeks while they were gone.

The girls agreed and were happy to help out. The dog was dropped off with pages of instructions. They followed them to the letter EXCEPT, two days before the elderly couple were due to come home the girls woke up to find the dog dead in his basket.

They contacted the couple who were understandably very upset. They asked the girls if they could bring the dog back to their house the next day.

This was easier than it sounded. The girls have no car and only travel by bus and train. So, after some careful planning, they put the dog in a suitcase and started on their trip.

As they were walking up the stairs at the tube station a young guy offered to help them carry the suitcase up the stairs. They were thankful, as it was heavy.

However, when they got to the top of the stairs, the guy started running .......away..... with the suitcase. AND THE DOG!!

The girls chased him but lost sight of him.

Tom said he wasn't sure how the girls explained this to the owners but they understood (would you believe that story?) but he did say he would have loved to see the look on that young guy's face when he opened the suitcase.

This may be the end of the girls' dog sitting days I think.....I know my dog sitting days are behind me too after looking after my brother's dog earlier in the year. Let's hope it might be the end of the robber's days too...the shock when opening the case might have bought him to his senses.

Has anything happened to you while caring for someone elses pets, kids, houses etc?

* Names changed to protect the innocent.

52 comments:

  1. I'm not sure if I should laugh at the robber's expression or cry for the poor dog, but I can't help it, I'm laughing my head off. That is the craziest story I ever hear!

    My only dog sitting experience was ONCE (and only once) that I offered to take care of a neighbor's dog for the weekend. I was given 12 pages of instruction which included heating up the dog's food-- And that was back in the pre-microwave days! Ugh.

    Glad your back Lilly.

    xo

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  2. @ Joanna - have you read my dog sitting story with my brother's dog. Disaster. The dog had it all over me and by the end of it I was begging for mercy!!

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  3. Ohh... that's fabulous. Except for the poor couple who've lost their dog, obviously, but I would've loved to see the look on that thief's face!

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  4. Good gracious! What a story! We used to dogsit our friends' dogs since we didn't have our own. I remember one dog, a sheltie who got startled when my husband turned on the vacuum cleaner. The dog took off and ran around each room in the house peeing as he went.

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  5. Well I know my Aunty accidentally drove over my pet dog many years ago. There were lots of tears and I know she felt way worse than I did. It was the dog's fault. But those poor girls, could you imagine how seriously they were taking the task in getting the dead dog back home when the knight in shining armour turned out to be a thief.

    The lesson in this is don't let anyone else carry your bag no matter how high those stairs are and how heavy that bag happens to be. Oh I wonder what happened to the poor dog though...

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  6. Sometimes people get what they deserve!

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  7. WOW! I can imagine that guy's face when he opens that suitcase. I am dogsitting for my girls this coming weekend for the first time. They have 2 large Australian Shepherds. I hope nothing happens after reading this.lol

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  8. I´m laughing just imagining the robber´s face, when he opened that suitcase! Priceless! :)
    We just dog sit for our neighbors when they go away, but the dogs are outside and run around freely. So there´s no work there.
    Thanks for the laugh on a Monday morning! :)

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  9. What an excellent dog story. My brother's dog did a runny poo on my Mum's white carpet while holidaying there. The dog now has to go to a kennel and hasn't been able to show his face in her house again.
    Also, I house sat for 6 months and the house got broken into. It was really terrible telling the owners about it on their return. I couldn't help feel guilty that their belongings had all been gone through with electrical appliances missing. Interestingly I was also looking after my sisters dog that day, but the fluffy thing just got put in the bathroom by the robbers.

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  10. what a great story, lol and thanks for sharing.

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  11. Woah what a story, I don't know whether to cry or laugh. Stranger than fiction. I really feel for the girls though.

    I do not have any pet sitting story but once there was a real nice young chap that turned and offered & helped me carry my heavy bag up the stairs in Singapore. And I told that story again and again how glad I was and how nice Singaporeans are. That it could only happen in Singapore. Malaysians would never do it, bla, bla, bla. Could it have been a different story?

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  12. Great story! Thanks for the laugh!

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  13. Oh Lilly, the fact that this actually happened is priceless! That is just the best, or worst, depending on how you look at it :)

    True story I overheard while getting my hair done. A young guy moves into a new neighborhood. Its filled with families and kids and pets. He so badly wants to fit in. He is asked to care for a neighbor's house their dog and pet bunny while they are on vacation. Day one, the dog comes running up to him with a DEAD bunny in its mouth. Oh he was just freaking out! This was no way to make a good impression on the new neighborhood :) So he comes up with the idea to clean this poor bedraggled bunny up. He washes it, dries it with a blowdryer and gently lays it inside the cage. He is hoping the owners will think it merely passed away on its own.

    The neighbors return. He doesn't hear a thing for a few days. Finally he approaches them. Had he heard the news they asked? Their poor children had been traumatized upon their return.

    You see the bunny had died BEFORE they left and they had buried it in the back yard... only to return home and find it all cleaned up and IN THE CAGE in the house!!!!

    My stylist and I had tears streaming down our face as the guy told this story!

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  14. wow - two great stories - thanks Vicky and Lilly.

    Well that was one athletic thief to be able to out run two girls while carrying the dead dog suitcase.

    I remember hearing of a friend that froze a dead dog because it die in the winter and they couldn't bury it.

    We have the ashes of our last dog in the family room. I didn't want to get the ashes but other emotional family members won the decision.

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  15. .... I don't know which is funnier ~ the dead dog or the dead bunny? I will have to tell both stories during the onslaught of visitors (13) arriving in a week or so.

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  16. lilly;
    What a story,fact is better then fiction.
    I have had dogs and cats all my life. They all had stories of their own.
    But my daughter found a female black Lab that had just had puppies. She was hiding under a car in a parking lot. My daughter brought her home. (of course)
    We called the HS to see if anyone reported a lost dog...nobody had and it was the weekend. So we kept the dog and on Monday tried again. We found the vet that the dog went to, then were able to contact the owners. We thought that they would be so thrilled...not, they didn't want her back and so they offered her to us for free.(Big of them)
    We already had a very big sweet Lab and this little female was scaring the poop out of her. Felt bad that we didn't take her at first but a so glad that we didn't. I found out that the owners were breeding this dog way to often and the vet had said that she couldn't be breeded again for at least a year. No wonder the poor little dog was aggressive, I would be too if I had given birth to as many children as she had.
    Good to see your post , I missed you!
    Sad .

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  17. OMG - how terrible! I can't believe this isn't fiction! Amazing!

    We did dogsit for a friend and the whole of the outside of the house was ruined with claw marks. Never again!

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  18. I don't have any humorous stories but I used to drag every stray dog I found home with me to try to locate it's owner. The last one was an irish setter, who when it's owner picked him up didn't say thank you, instead just told me that it happened all the time. "The last time for a week". I gave up after that.

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  19. Haaaaaaaaaa haaaaaaaaaaaaa Vicki your story is way better. That is hilarious.

    Now the butcher's story is factual because he repeated it on radio - well he was dead serious anyway and upset for his daughter.

    Then again, a butcher once asked me whether I wanted the right or left leg of lamb. I am not much of a meat eater. When I said what is the difference he then told me that the sheep had come from vey hilly country so it's right leg had grown longer than the left leg as a result of standing on uneven ground. I wasn't quite sure for a minute or two....

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  20. Oh my that is crazy funny. Those poor girls. I feel bad for them. And how sad for the elderly couple.

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  21. SHST - I know its not something you could easily explain at all unfortunately. Hope you are doing well BTW.

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  22. That is kind of funny and sad at the same time. Those poor girsl, that poor old couple and the poor dog. Least he didnt feel a thing. Hope the robber dumped him and fled. And they managed to locate him. Cn you ask your butcher for me did it have a happy ending?

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  23. This is such an awful story. I feel sorry for the girls and the owners and the poor little dog. That young man got what he deserved, maybe the shock when opening the suitcase will give him a life time of nightmares. I remember well your experience with your brothers dog. Have a very nice week.

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  24. OMG. That's horrible and hilarious at the same time. What an awful thing to happen. It's good to see you back. Beautiful new layout, BTW.

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  25. Oh I loved both the stories. I recall once that we had a pet rabbit. And on returning home from holidays one (the neighbours fed the bird and rabbit), my baby sister looked into the back yard and saw all these white bits scattered around the yard(it was actually paper). She screamed and screamed and couldn't be calmed down. She thought something had got into the yard and ripped the rabbit into pieces. The rabbit was tucked up into his cage perfectly happy.

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  26. Wow, what a hilariously dark story. I guess i'm into dark humor. How sad..hehe. I think if i were in that situation, I might be going to the lottery just to see if a bad sequence of events would lead to some type of fortune..haha.

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  27. Nothing like a good dead dog story.

    Uh...wait...

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  28. Oh my! This is the kind of story that you just can't make up! Sometimes life is crazier than fiction! What a story.

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  29. Poor girls to have gone through the death of a dog they were watching and then the robbery of the dog's body. OMG. But yes, I'm snickering, thinking of the robber's expression - that's what you get for robbing someone - shame on him!!!

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  30. My best friend was house sitting for me while my family and I were on vacation in Italy for month in 2006. SHE HAD AN AFFAIR over to my house. Her hubby was the one that told me about it, before he confronted her about sleeping around...

    Nice... huh?

    Uh... no... we are no longer friends... AND I dropped my mattress off in front of her house after I found out.

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  31. AWW the poor couples dog thats to bad.

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  32. poor dead dog. But I would have paid good money to see the suitcase nabber's face when he found a dead dog for his foul deed.

    I watched a young relative's pet bird, and was really nervous something would happen to the dear little bird (the bird died a month or two later, long after my relative came back from her trip).

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  33. @ Saundra - um, there are no words.....

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  34. Great to see you again Lilly! I had to look after the class' pet goldfish over the holidays and of course he died - my Mum bought another though...poor little girls - I feel for them!!

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  35. If that doesn't teach the thief a lesson for running off with someone else's property ... A nice bit of poetic justice, though I'm sure the elderly couple would like to have given their beloved pet a funeral and a burial.

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  36. Hello there! Your new header is lovely ... but also reminds me of the red dust clouding your skies.

    Have a wonderful weekend, Lilly!

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  37. I thought a cat I cared for ran away once, but it was hiding from me until the owners came back.

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  38. Oh, geez--that sounds incredible. It seems like one of those stories that someone would think couldn't possibly have actually happened.

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  39. Too funny..I'll bet that robber was overjoyed at his discovery! I once had the class guinea pig from my daughter's preschool at our house for the weekend who had the audacity to die while she was here! I was so traumatized I thought I'd croak too!
    Also...read your previous post and I'm just floored by that bank's lack of taking responsibility for it's wrong-doing. Just unbelievable...hope you get this resolved very soon.

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  40. Lilly looks like you've been trying on different header/banners lately. That's nice but any chance you'll be writing some more interesting stuff?

    all the best.

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  41. Dear me OMG! I cannot begin to imagine that guy's face when he opens that suitcase.

    I am sorry to hear about your extremely unfortunately incident with the bank.

    I know someone who works for fraud dept in the Commonwealth Bank in Sydney. I wonder what she might know.

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  42. One night when my neighbour was walking her dog she thought that he was dragging a bit. When she looked the poor animal had died .

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  43. R. has just reminded me of this one ,also true When i came home from work one day the family next door were in tears around a hole in the garden. " Our Rusty " their dog had died and they were having a little service and committal.
    In the fullness of time they got "Lady " a rescue dog but they had to return her because she kept trying to dig up "Our Rusty "

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  44. @ Barbara - that is hysterical (not for those concerned of course).

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  45. I was telling someone the story on your post today and they told me that once they looked after a canary for their son when he went on holidays.

    They put the canary outside to get some fresh air (in its cage), and a larger bird got in and killed it.

    The couple decided to buy a replacement bird. Problem was the canary was an unusual grey colour. They searched high and low and finally found one. After a long time looking.

    The son comes home and they didnt tell him what happened. Except when he came to pick up the bird he said, he was sick of having a bird and that he was going to try and find it a new owner.

    The couple have never told their son about the quick replacement and the canary went to new owners.

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  46. that is a sad funny story! The poor owners! They weren't even there during the dog's last moments and they couldn't even bury him!

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  47. Oh my their are some fantastic stories here, loved them all. Vicky you will have me laughing forever.

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  48. Lilly, its a little late, but I am linking to this post and re-telling my story on my blog, with full credit going to you! Thanks for the inspiration as always and all the laughs!! Hope your days are brightening a bit.

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  49. Hi Lilly, I've been sent by Vicky. This story is very funny. I bet this robber thought he had hit the jackpot when he felt the weight of the suitcase.

    I just read your terrible story about the CBA. I hope it is getting sorted out, every day that goes by with out your money would be a stressful one. Once you get it back I hope you take it else where.

    I may see you on A current Affair or Today Tonight?

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  50. Dear Author www.lillyslife.com !
    Yes, it is solved.

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  51. well, I house sat for my new boss many years back and she had two dogs. Well, both of them ran out of the house because I left the door opened when I ran to find telephone that was ringing off the hook....I think I was close to a heart attack at 30 until I found them about 4 blocks away trying to attack a smaller dog through a plate glass window. Oh it was fun. They were HUGE dogs and getting them back was, well, a challenge at best. I told her nothing of the incident of course and even got a little bonus. : )

    Very funny post!

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  52. What a great web log. I spend hours on the net reading blogs, about tons of various subjects. I have to first of all give praise to whoever created your theme and second of all to you for writing what i can only describe as an fabulous article. I honestly believe there is a skill to writing articles that only very few posses and honestly you got it. The combining of demonstrative and upper-class content is by all odds super rare with the astronomic amount of blogs on the cyberspace.

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Thanks for your comments.