We have a dog who, although no longer technically a puppy (he's 2 1/2), as a Lab he will be puppy-like for many years to come. One of his many nicknames is, of course, Puppy. He is wonderful, and we love him dearly. We love him so much, in fact, that we almost-happily clean up after him all the time. He is not destructive, and in general he follows the basic household rules - he understands that his bathroom is outside, he knows (though he sometimes pretends he doesn't) that he is not allowed to chew on a bone anywhere but the kitchen, he does not hump people (though he loves nothing more than a good long sniff of the nether-regions).
In spite of his generally good behavior, as a dog Puppy exhibits a number of interesting behaviors that create messes which the people who share their home with him (namely, my husband and me) must constantly clean up. For example:
- For reasons we cannot fathom, he will fill his mouth with water from his bowl and rather than swallow...drool it out the sides of his mouth as he walks across the kitchen.
- He loves to lick the edge of the counter - the part that hangs over and is perpendicular to the countertop itself. He'll sniff and lick the air first, indicating that he's picked up on something potentially yummy, and then he's at it: lick, lick, licking the edge of the counter.
- If you don't have a dog, you may not know this, but their drool is practically insoluble. You can't just wipe it off of a surface once it's dry. It stains. Weird, huh? So, whenever we see him licking something (the coffee table, the window ledge, a wall - seriously, a wall!), it has to be wiped relatively quickly unless we've deemed it "not worth it". Please note that MANY things have fallen into that category. We would go mad otherwise!
- Oh! And the nose prints at dog-height crack us up. We gave up even trying to keep the lower panels of our living room windows clean. It's his favorite lookout position, and for whatever reason he seems to believe that if he plasters his wet snout to the glass, he might just get an actual sniff of the dog who had the gall to pee on our parking strip.
Today my clean-up project is rounding up "Puppy's Minions". Sometimes referred to as "dust puppies", these are the clumps of dog hair that accumulate over the course of a couple of days. It doesn't matter that I just brushed him, he is constantly shedding some amount of hair, and we only wish we could use it for something useful - like insulation, or stuffing for a pillow, or spin it into yarn for a hat (I saw that on an Animal Planet show once. I still have mixed feelings about it - mostly "Eew"). Anyway, puppy's minions had gathered strength and appeared to be preparing to launch an attack on anyone who dared step into the front door. I had to engage in a preemptive strike or be forever shamed. So, out with the vacuum.
I don't enjoy vacumming, it always seems like it will take half the day to do. Everytime I pull out the darn thing, I am amazed that I did the whole first floor in only 20 minutes. My new goal is to do stuff like this A) often enough that the minions from one room in the house don't have time to join ranks with those of other rooms and B) to do it during slow parts of the week so that we don't have to do a whole house round-up every weekend. I want to have my weekends free to sit around and be cozy, knitting or reading or baking. I don't want to have to clean the kitchen (including counter edges) just to be able to mix up some cookie dough, or vacuum before I can invite friends over with a straight face.
So far, today's effort has been successful. All visible minions have been sucked up, though I know that there are always a few strays hiding out somewhere out of reach. Oh, well. In a couple of days they will have migrated to more public spaces, in search of friends. When that time comes, I'll pull out the vacuum and get them, too.
Comments