I run a dog walking business that covers 4 cities. Recently I had an employee leave because his part time night job offered him full time with benefits and management training, and there was no way in hell I was going to hold him back from that. In the past when I’ve had to hire, I was always able to hire a reference from a current or former employee of mine, so I never had to look far to have a reliable employee. However this time I had to do online advertising on indeed and craigslist, and it took a long time to find a decent candidate. My boyfriend works out of a friend’s mechanic shop, he is selling the shop and buying a new one, so there was going to be a couple of months of my boyfriend not having a heck of a lot to do between his side jobs with personal clients’ cars. So he told me he would work for me until I could hire somebody. I took him along and introduced him to all the dogs, let all the clients know what was going on, and he’s been walking dogs for us for about 6 weeks. It was really relieving knowing we were going to be at full steam while I searched for a new employee, we have since made a hire but the new shop isn’t up and running yet so he asked if he could stay on for a while to fill in for peoples days off/sick calls/taking some overflow walks so no one gets overwhelmed. I’m like hell yeah! I pay everyone by 1099, no taxes withheld. He told me not to pay him, but I didn’t know how to accept that kind of offer so I pay him in cash and just charge it to myself. He told me to take $125/week out of his pay and hold it aside for the vacation we are taking in August. He doesn’t want me paying for a dime of it

As if any of that stuff above wasn’t enough of a reason to love him, I had a really awful day today. I feel like death, I think I may have strep again (this would be the third time this year 🙄) I just feel so rundown. There’s tons of construction going on in one of the cities we cover and the traffic has been insane the past couple of months, you literally can’t go anywhere. So I was stuck in a lot of traffic, I was late to a lot of my walks because of it and was just super stressed out all day. We talked throughout the day and he told me everything would be fine, my clients know how reliable I am and they know what the traffic is like and not to worry. He took extra dogs for me today so I wouldn’t have to be out running around all day while feeling like garbage. I was short and snappy with him a couple of times throughout the day and I apologized for it immediately but still felt like such a jackass because all he has ever done is help. I have dogs in my neighborhood who were signed up for an evening walk tonight around 7pm. But I also had 2 dogs that had been staying at my house this week that had to go home and a cat that I had to visit before 7... so I’ve been out for the past hour and a half running around trying to get those things done to get back to the 7pm dogs. I knew there was no way I was going to make it back in time and was stressing out about it so bad even though the client is flexible and I know she would be fine with me being a bit late. However that’s just not in my nature, your reputation is all you have with this kind of business and I have a great one so I take a ton of pride in it. I called my boyfriend to let him know that I would be home late because I was getting to those dogs late, and not to wait for me for dinner. I had promised him I would make burgers for dinner tonight because he was craving one, and I felt bad that dinner would be so late. A few minutes later he sent me this picture:

The client has a hide-a-key under her porch, my boyfriend has seen me use it so he knows it’s there. He went over there and got the dogs for me so I didn’t have to rush. I literally had to pull over and cry on the side of the road so I wouldn’t crash. I’m just so damn tired that the sight of those dogs already being walked felt like the weight of the world being lifted off of me. I offered to stop somewhere to pick up a takeout dinner since it was going to be kind of late to start cooking the burgers, to which he responded by sending me THIS picture:

He knew what kind of day I was having, he knew I was tired and stressed out and didn’t feel well. He started cooking the burgers around the time he expected me to be home, and when he realized I was going to be late he went over to pick up the dogs and take them for a walk. By the time I get home now the dogs will be walked and dinner will be done. I can’t even.

This isn’t an isolated thing, he does things like this all the time. He will stop whatever he’s doing to make sure there’s nothing he can do for me first. His mother had to be in the hospital for a couple days due to COPD, so after he walked dogs for me today he had to shoot about 40 minutes away to check on her and make sure she was settling back at home OK. Then he flew back down here and cooked for my silly ass and went and grabbed those dogs for me so I wouldn’t have to stress out. He had a stressful day too but god forbid he let ME get stressed.

No one deserves this man. No one.