Using the Cleaning Dogs

My dogs are capable of producing enough hair to skip the carpet and go straight to real dog-hair flooring, soft, luxurious, plush. They usually cause me more work around the house than they help with…except in the kitchen.  There, amongst the ketchup stained linoleum and casually spilt milk, my two pups are in their “help the boss” element.  

Both dogs take their cleaning jobs seriously…just in different ways.  Take, for example, my breakfast.  I was happily smearing peanut butter on my half bagel and reaching for the honey, when I bumped the plate, flipping it through the air with the bagel to follow.  Both landed upside down on the floor.  No problem.  I called the dogs.  The Corgi, in a frantic full-bore run, came through the dog door first.  She slid to a stop in front of her food dish and gobbled…inhaled the three pieces of bagel I had cut and dropped into the dish. She would provide her true assistance in a moment.  

The Border Collie, being a Border, gracefully walked in and looked piercingly into my eyes.  I glanced at the muck on the floor.  She considered the mess.  “Ah, a job for me.  Yes, boss, I can handle this.” Then, she strode over and flicked the goo with her tongue.  She cleaned up the chunks and the top layer of peanut butter.  Her tongue never actually touched the floor, no, she measured each flick carefully.  Finished, she went back to the porch to rest in the sun.  Her job was done.

In swooped the Corgi, a true swiper of floors.  She began the process she delights in, lovingly wiping the sticky floor with her tongue, checking and rechecking to be sure she hadn’t missed the slightest amount of peanut butter.  She’s…oh…so…thorough.  I’m pretty sure she could work for the Mob…or the government as a “cleaner.”  There would be no evidence left over to give away a crime…as long as there was sticky food involved.  Let a hitman smear a victim with spray cheese…gone.  If the splatters on the wall are dried egg…whoosh…in comes the Corgi Cleaner and it is no longer there…never was…never could be.  She’s amazing…and a pig.  

Some might think I’m lazy, relying on the dogs for this little chore, but, hey, it works.  I raised a family…one kid a walking, talking, spilling mess producer…and rarely had to clean up piles of crud on the floor.  A quick swipe of the mop and tadah!…clean floor…thanks to a dog or two’s tongue.  Here’s to the cleaners…cheers to the doggie do it crew…thanks, girls. 

That ain’t good…

I knew as soon as I drove up and she met me at the car.  She’d rolled in something dead…really dead…and that ain’t good.  It’s 10:30 at night.  I’m tired, a bit cranky and my border collie just greeted me with that look on her face.  I don’t claim to be an animal psychic, but I can read what she is saying a lot of the time and this is one of those times.  Tess is saying, “I’m fine…smell me, baby.  I’ve had a gooo-oood day.  I have a little surprise for you and I LOVE ME!”  

I have never understood why dogs relish a good roll in dead, smelly things or why they appear to  be so blooming proud of the overpowering reeking stink they emanate afterwards, but they do love the stench and they are soooo proud.  I don’t know, maybe it relates somehow to that greeting each other by sniffing the wrong end thing, but, hey, I think I’ll pass on overanalyzing this little habit and just assume they have some weird attachment to really gross stench.  

It seems each Spring our little ranch comes to life with baby kildeer scurrying to hide beneath their mother’s wings, wild iris painting the hillsides lavender, the changing of the brown of last season’s leftovers to the vivid green of lush grasses and…of course, the odor of rotting carcasses from the winter’s kills thawing in the forests around the place…Personally, I could skip the road kill…not the dogs…they have that sniffing the wafting fragrance of icky, sticky, super stench down to a science and as soon as I slip away for a few hours, they follow their nose right to their little smell heaven.  YUCK!  Disgusting.  And so, instead of writing about a really cool organizational tip this evening, I am writing about bathing the dog while gagging.  

It’s over.  She shook and I am drenched.  She smells better.  I smell worse.  The end of a day…So, how was yours?