This weekend we got to try something new: puppy-sitting. Yes, that sweet, brown-eyed, shiny-coated little girl in the photo above, who lives with my parents and responds (most of the time) to the name “Dagny,” got to come visit Aunt Anne and Uncle Shayne for two days while Mom and Dad went skiing.

And, oh boy, did we have our work cut out for us.

It’s a little funny, because I love this dog. She’s a complete sweetheart, if a bit rambunctious (puppies just can’t help having way more energy than they know what to do with), and has a tendency to find a way to curl up and fall asleep on my feet when I stand still for longer than two minutes. She’s got the biggest, saddest eyes I’ve ever seen, and I swear her tail never stops wagging.

But, she’s also a master of food detection, a sniffer of everything that’s below four feet in height, and manages to turn playing fetch into a full-contact sport.

Oh, and our house, with its lack of children and pets alike, is in no way dog-proofed. As in our wine glasses are sitting in an open cupboard at knee level (which is perfect height, in case you were wondering, for full-on dog-slobber investigation). Oh, Dagny.

I think I said the word “no” more times over the weekend than I have in the last three months and rescued more socks and gloves than I can count. Shayne, somehow, managed to play good cop the whole weekend and remain her best friend. Sigh.

But, even following this rather large and incredibly curious puppy around for 48 hours, I did manage to enjoy her company, her oddball personality and the way she changed the dynamic of what would have otherwise been a typical weekend. Like the long walk we ended up taking on Saturday morning in the open space near our house. And watching her literally jump up and down when Shayne pulled out a tennis ball to throw. And the evenings, when she would get sleepy and help herself to my favorite chair, curl up in a tiny ball of brown fur, and pass out.

Still, I do think we both learned something valuable in our puppy-sitting adventure: we’ll probably wait to have kids until we can find somewhere else to store our wineglasses.