Doggy Boarding and Other Family Activities

This past week, we have been dog sitting a friend’s dog.  Dash is super sweet, gets long well with our dogs, and is apparently smarter than them, too.  For Christmas, we got the dogs a dog door.  They want to go in and out all the time, and we thought this door would be the perfect solution to their freedom.  Turns out, Daisy is too dumb to use it and Molly is too stubborn.

Daisy sits outside the dog door flap and just hits it with her paw a hundred thousand times until we come over and coax her through.  And Big Molly?  Fagheddaboutit.  She is so mad that we won’t open the door for her that she just sticks her head through the dog door and barks at us until we open the big door.  I can literally hear her barking, “OPEN THE DAMN DOOR!”

But Dash has been here for less than a week and he has learned to come and go as he pleases.  Sometimes, Daisy will follow him and come in and out herself.  But Big Molly is still a big, fat no.  She doesn’t care who else uses the stupid door.

Then, last night, we had Chris’s granddad, my sister-in-law, and her boyfriend over for dinner and to watch the football game. Annie and Justin brought over their new puppy, Rory.  She is the tiniest, cutest little thing ever!  She looks like a stuffed animal.  But then she starts walking around and it cracks me up!

My kids carried that puppy everywhere last night.  They took her outside, upstairs to show her their bedrooms, downstairs to watch football, in the kitchen to show her the dog bowls… everywhere.  And everywhere the kids go, Daisy follows.  And everywhere Daisy goes, Molly follows.  And everywhere Molly goes, Dash follows.  It was a train of dogs walking through my house.

Big Molly was finally not pitching an old lady temper tantrum about the dog door because she LOVES puppies and babies. She was in heaven with little Rory. She just kept nuzzling her and nosing her and cuddling with her. Big Molly has a big heart.

I love dogs and I am so glad our house is always full of them, but I woke up this morning with this incredible urge to throw the windows open, clean all the dog hair, and get my house to smelling less doggish and more soap-ish.  I think I used an entire bottle of Fabreeze.  And the kids kept yelling, “BUT THE HOUSE SMELLS FINE!”

No, it doesn’t.  It smells fine because you have become used to living in a kennel.  And because you have the nose sensitivity of your father, who I am 98% sure has no ability to smell anything.  Our house smells.  And we will clean it until I say it doesn’t smell.

And that’s how we spent our day off.

No one in our family is speaking to me right now because I didn’t let them do anything fun all day.  BUT THEIR ROOMS ARE CLEAN, THE LAUNDRY IS DONE, AND OUR HOUSE SMELLS LIKE PLEDGE, SO I WIN.