Life with dogs and other things

[ksmith]

I'm always checking the floors when Gaby's inside. Months can go by without an accident or digestive upset, and it's still the first thing I look for when I wake up in the morning or get home from work.

Well, I had a present waiting for me when I got home. Lunch, puddled in front of the sofa, apparently horked up soon after I left to return to work. I spotted a piece of King's kibble in the mess, which might have been enough to trigger the upset. She may have picked it up off the floor. Or I may have accidentally transferred it from King's bowl to hers when I was fixing lunch, which makes me feel just dandy.

Six hours had passed, so I fed her dinner. She licked the bowl clean, and was her old, bouncy self. Now, she's on the sofa next to me, fast asleep. I have a roll of paper towel within arm's reach just in case.

I think I've mentioned before that I have a Dyson Animal vacuum cleaner, which is the special model made to pick up pet hair. It's fine. It does pick up hair. But for all the vaunted engineering refinements it supposedly possesses, there are a few aspects that lack. Ran into one this evening as I vacuumed the rug, post-clean up. The rollbar/brush assembly that spins/loosens hair stopped rotating, so I took it apart only to find that so much hair had jammed into the area around the belt drive that I could barely move the assembly. I would think that if you advertised a vacuum cleaner as the best thing ever for picking up pet hair, you wouldn't design it so that said hair could jam parts that needed to move in order to pick up said hair. I am aware that you do need to clean the thing on occasion, but I still think it's a design flaw.

I also don't like the fact that when you remove the light saber, you're left without any easy way to pick up the vacuum. I realize that the thing is on wheels and it's supposed to be able to follow along, but it's not particularly stable and it will tip over. It also catches on rugs and doesn't roll over bumps very readily.

If I had it to do over, I doubt I would have bought it. If it ever breaks, I will probably go back to a vacuum with a bag. The fine dust gets everywhere when I empty the canister, and it's damned near impossible to keep the thing clean.

And now that I'm just mildly upset, I need to get to work...

Comments

[cepetit.myopenid.com (from livejournal.com)]

Suggested alternative: A canister-type wet-or-dry shop vacuum. No bags; picks up the wettest of horking; doesn't do so well on carpet, but they're pretty cheap and might be a good auxiliary/first-pass thingy.

And, as Craig Ferguson says, a decent shop vacuum has "the proper amount of suction" (appropriate leer).

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

I don't know what's worse, picking the stuff up with paper towels or watching it flow into a canister. Although not all of them are clear plastic.

Then you have to clean it.

I will have to think about that one...