So, how do you annoy the Queen of the Universe?
By cleaning.
Dogs hate it when you clean house. They particularly resent vacuum cleaners. But if you really want to jump the shark, then the trick is to gather up all the (stinky! ratty!) Toys in the house and throw them in the wash machine.
Anyone who thinks dogs have no feelings or are incapable of sentience should wash a Toy in front of a dog, and note how the behavior resembles that of a four-year-old who sees his Blankie sinking into the washer.
“What are you doing?”
“Give that back!!!!!”
“But it’ll drown!”
“You’re killing it!“
“Is it done yet?”
“When will it be done?”
“Where is it?”
And finally, defeated and destroyed: “How on earth could you do such a thing?”
The Pinkbird of Joy had to be fully deconstructed to be washed, after Cassie eviscerated him and ripped off one of his ears. His tennis-ball-sized squeakers came out of his weird-looking head and fat little belly, the incisions secured for laundering by a pair of safety pins. Once laundered, partly dried, restuffed, and sutured up, he looked none too worse for the wear, except for lacking an ear. Or a wing. Or whatever it is:
Well, he was fine until he found himself in the clutches of the Jackal of Despair, who snatched him away from the Underling forthwith:
hmm… You have to allow, don’t you, that as aliens go, a dog is one scary critter. Lucky for us this one just about comes up to the middle of my shin. Few of us, I suspect, would care to be the size of the Pinkbird of Joy. Not with that animal around, anyway.
Speaking of dogs, Charley the Golden Retriever (the lowliest of the underlings) is in Colorado with M’hijito. Here he is trotting around Grand Junction:
Click on the image to view its full glory.
The Queen was mightily aggravated by the full-day-long cleaning frenzy. This being about the third day I’ve felt almost normal after the recent infirmity, I took it into my pea brain to make up for two months’ worth of neglect. Started with some light yardwork, replacing busted sprinkler heads and the like. Then on to the interior of the Funny Farm, after laundering Toys and handwashing a sweater.
It took the entire afternoon to vacuum, dust-mop, and mop the flicking floors. And that was with mopping only the kitchen, dining room, and living room… Yuck!
Her Majestic Highness sheds a steady snowfall of stray fur wherever she goes. Since I’ve been in bed the better part of two weeks and she’s been hanging around the bedroom with me, the dog dunes under and around the bedroom furniture were up to my ankles. Just after cleaning the bedroom, the vacuum was jammed with as much dog hair as it normally picks up from the whole house!
At any rate, now the house is dog-dune free, dust-free, soap-film-free, water calcification-free, grease-free, floor-grime-free, paperwork-on-the-desk-free, and grody-Toy-free. The back hurts, the hip hurts…again. But at least the place is fit for human and canine habitation, for a change.
Entire court of the Queen of the Universe, drying out in the garage.
I love a solid cleaning binge after feeling like a wrung out schmuck of a crushed pillow. I might be completely tired again but the satisfaction of a nice clean abode is worth the effort. So glad you’re starting to feel better.
More or less. Thot i wuz gunna die when i rolled out of the sack this morning, but after a half-mile amble with the Queen went back into the tolerable range. 🙄
My dog hates the vacuum cleaner, too. She hides in another room while it’s running. After seeing Cassie’s “court” I think my dog doesn’t have nearly enough toys!
However, my dog tends to rip up soft toys pretty easily so that’s one reason she doesn’t have any. To indulge her desire to tear things up, I give her the cardboard tubes from toilet paper and paper towels. She actually shreds and eats them, although it still is messy and there are bits of cardboard left here and there. She loves her “tubes,” though!
Oops! I meant to write that my dog doesn’t have “many” soft toys, not “any.” She does have one that was purchased at a pretty high cost at an upscale pet store. It was rated nearly indestructible and was originally purchased as a gift for a friend who was adopted a St. Bernard. The adoption didn’t work out, so I was left with this large soft-ish toy that I couldn’t return. I gave it to my dog who simply *loves* it. It looks like a giant snake and is so big that she has to be careful walking through doorways with it, but it has stood up to a lot of rough and tumble with her, so it was a great find.
Ha ha!! Charley the Golden Retriever likes to do the same. The other day he quietly lifted a roll of toilet paper M’hijito had left on the bathroom counter, carried it into the hall, and turned it into a big pile of confetti!
Those stuffed toys that look like they have sheep fleece on them — kind of off-white with puffy fluffiness — hold up best. Anna the Ger-shep could deconstruct almost anything, but for some reason she couldn’t chew those things apart. But if it has a squeaker, cut open a seam, pull out the squeaker, and re-sew it firmly. The things can choke your dog.
The cool thing about the Birds of Happiness is that their squeakers are HUGE, way to large even for a big dog to swallow.
Three of our mini doxies want to rip the vacuum cleaner apart.
I can’t even move that contraption one inch until they hear it squeak and the cord drags on the floor.
On the other paw Mr. Dusty our GSD doesn’t give a hoot.
Dogs are the craziest people I know.
LOL! True, dogs are crazy. But the better one gets to know people, the more one loves one’s dog…
So true.
It’s so odd that I can remember a customer by their dog (s).