You’ve tidied round before you leave, on the general principle that you will come back to vaguely tidy and just have to actually do the housework. But there’s a catch, and it’s called Ani.
You walk back into the living room to find every cushion from the sofa… even the seat cushions… deftly piled into an impromptu castle in the middle of the floor, with Madam’s head poking out of one end, and the tail wagging furiously at the other.
The toy box has been completely emptied, there are balls everywhere… but she is sporting a large black feather which she has evidently managed to kidnap from my bag somehow. It is sticking straight out of her mouth and being completely ignored. The eyes are innocent, like melting syrup. She looks up hopefully… maybe I’ve been to the shop?
“Ani….” I don’t need to go any further; the deep, disapproving ‘what have you done’ voice says it all and she suddenly becomes a poor, badly-done-to setter with long, sad ears as she slinks into the corner and curls up under my chair…the feather, still sticking straight out of her mouth, sort of spoils the pathos though.
Reading me like a book, the very first twitch of smile brings her bounding out for cuddles.
I give in. I’m a useless disciplinarian where she is concerned.
Put the milk in the fridge, via her bowl of course, as she eyes me with confident expectancy. Time to get stuck in to the housework.
The feather duster is always interesting. Today, after another week of builders, there are cobwebs… and she seems to think the bright yellow fluffy thing is designed merely for her pleasure. I dust, she worries the duster. Not easy to get the cobwebs with a dog on the end, you know.
I look up and notice how grubby the light fittings are… the glass shades of the uplighters harbour frazzled mozzies and the odd daddy long legs… I have been putting the job off long enough. I don’t mind being short as a rule but there are times when taller would be handy.
I pull the dining chairs out and climb precariously onto the table. Even so I have to stretch to clean the light fittings, struggling to unscrew light bulbs to get at the inside of the shades with the damp cloth… not all that safe, but about all I can reach to do. The table isn’t the strongest and it is probably not all that safe either. Just as well I don’t weigh more…
Except, apparently I do… there is a nudge on my leg as Ani lets me know she is helping… and also on the table, sitting nicely, tongue lolling out of one side, a ferret dangling from the other… stuffed, not dead I hasten to add.
“Ani…”… dog and ferret disappear under the chair…
I manage to finish the light fittings with no further ‘help’ and start on the vacuuming, a big job as the whole sofa now needs doing again. Ani helps by wrestling me for the cushions until the hoover monster is switched on… then she darts back under the chair again.
By the time I am done, put the vacuum away and come back into the room the black feather has been shredded. I make the mistake of getting on my knees to pick it up…
…and instantly have an eruption of small dog and a mouthful of wet nose as she goes scatty. If I’m on her floor, I’m fair game.
I get the hoover.
By this time I am ready for a coffee… but first perhaps a shower.
No coffee… dog food, yes, treats yes, coffee… no. I’d forgotten. Never mind, a shower will do.
Ten minutes later I come back downstairs… the sofa cushions have been made into an impromptu castle in the middle of the floor, the toy box is empty and all I can see is a grinning face and a wagging tail….
Life with a small dog never gets boring….
Sue Vincent's Daily Echo 
😆 It sounds like she gives you a good home workout. 🙂
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I never need to feel guilty about not going to the gym 🙂
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That’s very true….mine were out catching frogs in the warm rain last night 🙂
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Oh dear… Ani at least tends to stick to spiders… and next door’s cat if it ever comes close enough…
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Our eldest is also obsessed with hedgehogs….she collects them and brings them inside to show us!!
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Oh no.. I have picked prickles out of border terriers with that obsession… Ani just wants to play with birds. You would think she wants to catch them and do dreadful things the way she carries on… yet when she found a freshly dismembered one through the fence the other day, all she did was sing until I came out to deal with it… the same way she sings when one of the baby birds falls from the nest and needs help. She’s a strange animal.
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Mine’s obsessed with hedgehogs too, but the stuffed animal ones, not the live ones. Lol!
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We have one of those… Ani knows all her toys by name. It’s really odd though.. she unstuffs all the bears, but any other stuffed toy she simply looks after… she even brings them to me to play, but if I throw them like a ball she just looks offended….
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We’ve bought her a stuffed one too, and it seems to be helping 🙂
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They do have these strange obsessions… 🙂 we have so much in common…;)
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Bless her heart, Sue: Keeps you fit, she does! xxx
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Doesn’t she just 🙂 xxx
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ani is a girl who knows what she wants and aims to make it happen. i like her spirit.
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She aims… and never misses 🙂
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LOL 🙂 With my big furry labradorable Allegro, I’ve just stopped putting the toys away. Fortunately he’s trained to not go on furniture… but two days ago I let him sleep on my lap on the couch, so I might have ruined that. Oh and it’s just as difficult to clean cobwebs when you’re deathly afraid of them as when you’re too short to reach them…. so don’t feel bad. I pay someone to heroically sweep them away for me or beg my mom to do it. (I can’t touch them without screaming, maybe one day that will change…) Life is most wonderful when it’s not ever boring. 🙂
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Ani has just taken herself to bed. That varies day to day. Tonight, apparently, that means burrowing under all the sofa cushions with just a nose sticcking out. I always have to play hide and seek to say goodnight… 🙂
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Awww, sooo cute!
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🙂
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Lucky that Ani is there to keep you on your toes … and to help with the housework. At least, that’s Ani’s perspective. 😉
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Indeed, Judy… she is good for my health, if I was completely on my own the house would stay tidy all the time… 😉
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I think housekeeping with Ani is infinitely more fun than doing it with oneself. I have to admit, I’m a sucker for melting brown eyes and faethers poking out of mouths every time.
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It has a certain charm, I have to admit 🙂 And she always ‘gets’ me…
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She gets me and I don’t even see her in “person”! Such a winsome charmer.
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I really should try and film her… she’s even ‘worse’ in motion 🙂
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I wish you would. That would be a great post!
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I’ll have to se what we can do 🙂
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