From the editor
Last month I may have scared some of you into thinking I live in a filthy mudhole. My mopping-averse nature did make it sound like the floors of the house were... festering.
Some of you offered good advice, and reader Alan kindly sent me a link to a warehouse full of bargain basement microfibre bath mats. Thank you Alan, my order is in!
However, two things have happened since then that have seen the floors go from muddy to immaculate.
Firstly, there was the general embarrassment of confessing my allergy to floor cleaning.
But mostly it was the arrival of two puppies, taking the dog household total to five. That’s a lot but in a 77 square metre house like mine it’s a LOT.
The puppies are from Waikato Pound Pups (www.facebook.com/waikatopoundpups). Every couple of weeks I put aside a lunch hour and go into their office to photograph the dogs they have up for adoption. Research shows the better the picture, the higher the likelihood the dog will be adopted. But sometimes there are dogs that need a bit of extra help. In this case it was a brother and sister, 12 weeks old and scared of everything. They sat outside the front door and cowered, too terrified to come in despite desperately wanting to. It took a good thick slice of dog roll, a lot of encouraging words, and watching my dogs bowl in and out before they got up the gumption to try.
Once in, it was time to teach them they had to go back out again to pee and poop.
They’ve been pretty good, just the odd accident. Which has meant getting down on my hands and knees to clean up. And while I was there... well, you’ll be pleased to know I did some scrubbing.