Every now and then, somebody asks me, "How in the world do you leave town so much with that menagerie of yours?"

For the record, we have one dog, two cats, and a growing school of fish. Amy, our greyhound, needs four walks a day, two meals, and her thyroid pills twice a day. The cats need food once a day, their litter box scooped two or three times a day, and regular skritches. The fish get fed a miniscule amount of food three or four times a day, plus weekly tank cleaning and water checks. All told, between the two of us, we probably spend at least an hour or so on the pets per day, and that doesn't count the twice-weekly classes and play group that Bubbles does with Amy.

So who takes care of all this when we're out of town?

( Pet care )