Cleaning around an unmovable object

If you have dogs who are allowed indoors, the floors will get dirty fast. This is a Law of Nature, lessened only if you’re one of those rare and wonderful people who wash their dogs’ feet every time before they come into the house.

We are not among those people. We let our dogs run in and out. In the summer, we leave a door open so that they can run in and out at will.

The linoleum is fairly easy to sweep. Even if we leave it a couple of days, it’s still relatively easy and quick.

The living room carpet is another story. It hides dirt reasonably well, so we can ignore it for weeks (dare I say “months”) at a time. Unless… Perhaps a dog eats too much grass on one of her many trips outside, and has to get rid of it in the middle of the night, when no one will wake up and let her out. Or perhaps a dog gets into some water and then some dirt, and then runs into the house before you can stop him. Or maybe the just-fertilized flower pot gets overturned by accident, somehow, by some unnamed, unseen entity.

When that happens (as it all has in the last week), we have to actually clean the carpet. Usually, that goes OK. Until that moment when the unstoppable force meets the unmovable object.

Tooey, aka Unmovable Object

Finally the unmovable object relents, and consents to compromise, and the job finally gets done.

the Unmovable Object consents to move

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Tooey prefers vacuum massage

You remember the post that described how Tooey loves my massager?

Well, it turns out that Tooey has her own preference in electric massagers. Tooey likes Vacuum Cleaner Massage.

I discovered this by accident. I was vacuuming the top of the bed to get all the dog hairs off (we’re among those who allow our dogs on the bed). Miss Manager hopped up onto the middle of the bed to see what I was doing.

I vacuumed all around her, but she didn’t move. So, figuring that it would persuade her to change position, I put the vacuum brush on her. She didn’t move. I vacuumed her shoulders and back for awhile, and then she turned over, as if to say, “Do the belly now, please.”

I ended up vacuuming her whole body. She lay there limp as cooked spaghetti, relaxed and loving every second — her own personal spa.

Cooper, on the other hand, has a different opinion of vacuums. I don’t think he understood that she actually liked the vacuum. He stood in the bedroom doorway, barking, “OMG!!! It’s the vacuum. The vacuum got out of its closet! Watch out! Oh, no! It’s the vacuum!”

But really, I think Cooper enjoys the vacuum, too. He just enjoys it his own way. It’s like he’s play-acting in a war game. And he knows his role — The Defender. He gets to play this game when the vacuum comes out, which it always does after he’s brushed or trimmed.

After grooming, he hops off the grooming table, runs over to the closet, and waits for the vacuum to escape. When it does, he barks and does these feinting, pouncing attacks. Not enough to actually damage the vacuum (or himself) — just enough that he can be satisfied that he has Done His Job.

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