Do you tidy up after your dog?
Or does your dog tidy up after you?
A recent reviewer of one of my cozy mysteries (yes! I write cozy mysteries featuring dogs!) wanted to know how to have more than two dogs and keep her house clean! You see, the books feature a household of three dogs and a cat.
Great question!
Once you have a family - be it two-legged or four-legged - a certain level of housepride has to drop, to maintain your sanity. But this doesn’t mean you have to live in a pig-sty!
It’s important to remember that this is your dog’s home too, and you shouldn’t be spending your time trying to pretend that you have no dog.
My dogs have plenty of beds around the house, so they can use their own furniture instead of mine, and tidy themselves up out of the way of foot-traffic.
They also have a large toy basket. All toys get chucked into this every night, and they can spend happy times rooting through to pick out their favourites or a new toy the next day. They always have access to a large variety of toys, of all possible materials - cloth, wood, metal, plastic, rubber, silicone … things to chase, chew, or cuddle.
Meals are taken in their appointed dining places, and one of them collects the bowls afterward and stacks them for me.
Dogs doing the work
I can frequently be heard saying, “Pick that up for me,” when I drop things or can’t reach them. Sometimes this is from laziness on my part, sometimes because the dogs love to do it - but always because it provides an opportunity for a positive interaction. And is often very entertaining!
Even delicate or awkward things can be carefully retrieved for me, including the tv remote, or a metal spoon. Naturally I’d never ask them to pick up anything sharper than a butter knife!
So “Where’s my jumper?” gets an enthusiastic response as Lacy runs to locate it and bring it to me.
And “Where’s my shoe?” is always good value. Even little Coco can pick up my heavy clogs and bring them. The star of the show here would be Lacy, who - if she can’t see them downstairs, will run upstairs and bring down one shoe. “Where’s my other shoe?” causes a momentarily wrinkled brow before she turns and runs back up to find the pair.
My socks are passed to me when I’m getting dressed and I “drop” a sock. And as long as they’re not very tight-fitting, they can also be removed for me, as well as trousers on request, coat-sleeves (very useful if you have a shoulder injury and can’t reach behind you), and - the pièce de résistance - pulling the cover off a duvet!
These last are all a development from Tug - but with a controlled “hold” so they aren’t ripping things to bits.
A further development of this would be emptying the washing machine, or tidying up rubbish into the bin, or toys into the toybox.
16 Muddy paws?
A towel at the back door is the simplest solution for this, along with an absorbent doormat. Teaching your puppy to have his paws dried is one of those essentials that can be overlooked if you are enjoying a hot dry summer (which this year we definitely are not, here in England!). So be in the habit of randomly “drying” your pup’s paws when he comes in, even when they’re not wet.
You can go a step further and teach your dog to wipe his feet. Some folk use a similar process to teach their dogs to file their own claws on a scratchboard. I have to say I can’t be bothered to supervise this foot-wiping with multiple dogs - easier to grab their paws with the towel. But, of course, I don’t “grab” them. They raise each paw for me in turn.
And, of course, restricting access to any sources of mud in the garden would be a good move.
Lastly, teach your puppies to enjoy hopping in the tub and having a shower from an early age: Coco needed more than a shake and a rub-down when he fell into a black dyke!
So how do I teach all this?
Most of these “tricks” can be learnt in Fetch it! Teach your Brilliant Family Dog to catch, fetch, retrieve, find, and bring things back
For fun and games, when you don’t care about the wellbeing of the object (e.g. their own toys) you can have an informal retrieve. For things where precision is needed - jumpers, shoes, electronics - you need the section on teaching a formal retrieve. It’s no use having a speedy find and pick-up if your item arrives back slobbery and in tatters!
And tidying toys up into a toy basket is simply an extension of the retrieve, but they deliver the item to the basket instead of your hand.
It’s certainly possible to have multiple dogs AND a clean and tidy house.
I’d love to hear what your dog does to help about the house! Comment below.