Dyson, Terrifying Dogs Since 2008

We have a busy home here, and it's filled with dogs. We love dogs, but we do not love their hair. Weirdly, I do not love hairless dogs, so that's not even an option. To combat the rolling balls of hair, Dyson and I have teamed up to become a force to be reckoned with. I'll bet my Dyson has seen more action in a year than most other Dysons will in a lifetime. I scoff at those people who buy a vacuum to dust the drapes every 6 months. That's not us.

We vacuum daily around here. That's an average, of course. Some days I vacuum more than once, although on those days, you'd never know it. On days that I vacuum twice, it's because we have a dog with what could be a a shedding gene on steriods hopped up on caffeine and fueled with sugar.The hair is overwhelming. O.Ver.Whel.Ming. (And the vet was as baffled by that excessive shedding as I was. Truly, the worst case I've ever seen. And $200 spend on bloodwork to realize it was nothing that could be treated.)

So with all this vacuuming going on, the family knows that Dyson gets a workout. The dogs know that part of life here is getting many free handouts from Micah and dealing with the noise of the vacuum interrupting their scheduled naptimes. And they're chill with this. The one spaniel simply looks at it like, "you again? Just don't suck in an ear while I lay here in your way, mmkay?" The other spaniel and the corgis just make a point to find an out of the way place to wait out the storm and quietly disappear. But the Boston? She's a nutjob.

This dog has lived with us for 3 years, and for 3 years we've vacuumed daily. But instead of just realizing it's part of life here and getting over it, she's allowed the vacuum to become The Things She Obsesses Over, and takes obsessing to all new lows. When I vacuum, she cowers, and the whites of her eyes could glow in a dark corner. But on days that I get the vacuum out, then realize that I need to empty the trash before emptying the vacuum canister before refilling it, and while I'm taking the trash out I get distracted by the dishes in the sink over where the new trash bags are kept, and then answer the phone and check email, and the vacuum sits in the middle of the floor where I left it when I got distracted by life, the dog goes nuts. I forget about that vacuum, even though I'm walking all around it, until I see a quivering mass of black and white looking like she's about to lose all bowel control. The vacuum doesn't even have to be on to terrify her. She's demented.

And her dementia has taken a turn for the worse. We keep the vacuum in the laundry room, which is also the mud room, the room where we keep the dog food, and where we meet guests or UPS deliveries. It's a rather busy room, and in a dog's world, many good things come out of it. But the Boston will no longer excitedly follow me into that room. And if I go in, then turn around and come back out, I find her squatted near the floor looking up at me with eyes full of sheer terror, anticipating the fact that I *could* be wheeling Dyson out with me.

There's so much potential for destroying that dog's life. She's lucky that we like her so much. But in the event that she gets in the trash one too many times, I may be tempted to touch her with the vacuum hose. Shoot, the vacuum won't even need to be plugged in. The dog is a freak.