This is the way we clean the house (Oso's Rescue - Day 21)

I'm not sure if it was having a young pup in the house that had kept me so busy, or working on my newest role helping to build new clubs on the West Coast with DockDogs Worldwide. But somehow, over the last two and a half weeks, I had less time to spend cleaning up the inside of the house, and it was beginning to feel like a very large kennel. The time had come to take a day off and whip the house back into shape.

I started in the bathrooms, and worked my way from one side of the house to the other. You followed me into the bathroom and watched as I used a bristle brush to clean the inside of the toilets. Your head bobbed around in a tiny circle mimicking the swishing motion of the brush. I had to remind you that this whole routine was not to entice you into playing with the brush later on.

"Leave it", I said in a cautioning tone. I know we hadn't really practiced that particular word, but I was pretty sure you had an idea of what it meant since you snapped out of your toilet brush trance and took a small step backwards. Everyone in the house uses pretty consistent vocabulary with the dogs, and "leave it" is one of those staple words. It ranks right up there in the usage frequency with "enough" and "ah, ah, ah".

As I moved on to the vacuuming portion of the

housecleaning, you and Buddy did your part to shed as much remaining brown dog hair on the carpets by wrestling and rolling around on your backs on the carpets. Buddy would flop over onto his back and let you pin him down. You happily obliged the invitation and playfully tugged on his ears and chewed on the scruff of his neck. At 2 1/2, Buddy will still quite the puppy himself, and he tolerated your somewhat lengthy and rambunctious game that carried on off and on throughout the day.

Buddy and you had become quite the friends.

Maybe it was because you he was closest in age, that he is a male, or perhaps because you and Buddy have a lot in common. Frankly, it could just be that Buddy was the only one that would put up with that obnoxious puppy behavior without putting you in your place. It was hard to say why the two of you were building a bond, but you were quickly becoming best of friends.

I figured the two of you had conspired to deposit even more on the floor than there already was. Knowing that I would be cleaning the carpets later, I rolled the vacuum slowly over the floor in order to collect as much dirt and dog hair as possible beforehand. By the time I finished vacuuming our almost 1800 square-foot home, I counted 3 times that I had to empty the bin on the vacuum cleaner. I suppose all that dirt and dog hair could've contributed to that feeling of being in a kennel.

I unwound the hose from the vacuum used for cleaning around the edges of the carpet. The corner behind your kennel was thick with dog hair, so I ran the hose attachment along the edge and sucked up every last tuft of the remnants of your shedding. As I began to put away the attachment, something had grabbed your attention. Teasingly, I ran the attachment over your back. You wiggled and could've cared less.

You thought this thing was way cool, and were going to give it a little taste. Little did you

know that as you brought your lips close to the end, the suction would pull at your flaps and your whiskers. But you thought his was pretty fun. So you tried it again several times; lean into the hose, it would start to suck at your snout, pull away from the hose and stare at it while I giggled. I bet you did this at least a dozen times, trying to figure out it's concept. Eventually, you began to lick at it. This was fun, but I had more work to do.

I had really made a mess after I dumped out the container from the vacuum, and decided a paintbrush and a suction tool would be the best way to try to clean off and restore the machine. Being sneaky, you tried to sliver in front of my and nibble on the bristle side of the giant paintbrush. When I was done I tossed the paintbrush a few times for a couple of fun retrieves in the living room.

Later, when I was telling Chris about your funny affections with the paintbrush, he filled me in. Once, when you were a tiny puppy, he was doing some painting work in the apartment you lived. His brushes had been put away for the night, but your owner let you steal the brushes and then chew them up. I could see how you could do that in a matter of minutes with such a soft wood handle. You were quite silly running around with a paintbrush in your mouth.

Later in the evening, I put the other dogs away for a bit and we worked on obedience and some fun drills in the living room. I had a low bench which I had tipped over on it's side. The idea was to practice a bit of jumping, and confidence building by having to get over the bench.

I sat on one side of the bench and tossed the toy over to the other side. The first time, you literally 'stepped" over it many times before you would actually jump. This was going to come in handy later once you learned to swim.

I tossed a bumper over the bench for you for the good part of 15 minutes. In between I gave you loads of belly rubs, then tossed it again. We were building your toy and play drive, and you didn't even know it!

Just before bed it was time to let all the dogs out to relieve themselves before we called it a night. When I called th

em all back inside, they all headed straight to the kitchen for their customary bedtime cookie. I tucked you into your kennel and turned out the lights.