Midlife has revealed my great talent – cleaning up after dogs

Aged 54 and it’s not a skill I anticipated having great pride in. But it’s something I excel in. It goes like this. It’s the worst wake-up call. I’m a light sleeper and stir at the first hint of a gurgling sound from the room’s corner, then comes a large belch, a deep cough, then the sound of licking. It’s Cyrus. Our large, fox red lab who sleeps in our bedroom. It’s the dead of night, a day or so after Christmas, and I wake with a nasty dryness in my mouth, a foul taste. I lie sniffing the air. There’s more groaning from the dog corner and this time it’s loud enough to wake my wife. “Oh my God,” she exclaims.

And before I have switched on the bedside lamp, Cyrus is there, licking my face, tail thumping the bed.

Now quite awake I’ve no need to sniff the air. The odour is obvious. I get out of bed and my bare foot sinks into something soft and wet. “Oh my God,” I say, switching on the light. “Oh my God,” I say again as I look down at my foot and across to the corner of the room.

My first aim is to get Cyrus out of the house as fast as possible. And because I’ve stepped in it, that means hopping out of the room and down the stairs, down the hall and hopping to the door and shooing Cyrus out, then hopping back upstairs so I can hose down my foot in the bathroom.

Then I set to the mission properly. A bucket, kitchen roll, a couple of cloths and tea towels. My wife is, quite correctly, hiding under the duvet. She need take no part in the proceedings. For when it comes to cleaning up dog sick and poo –this is my time.

So an endless repeat of applying a wet cloth and squeezing it out, finally patting every bit dry. After an hour the situation is under control. I put my dressing gown in the wash, showered (showering feverishly like I’ve been exposed to radiation), and by 4.30am, having lit a scented candle, I was back in bed.The next morning there was little to show except for some slightly damp patches. I hoovered over for good measure and 24 hours later, of that night’s calamity, there was no sign.

‘I hop out of the room and down the stairs, down the hall and hop to the door, shooing Cyrus out’