More about these foul canines

In the comments below (for the "I hate my dogs" post), Angus Lincoln brought up that beautiful music that is middle-of-the-night-I'm-feelin'-sick sounds.

Yeah - that's a fun one. And he's further right when he points out they can never vomit on anything but carpet.

We bought this house because it has exactly zero square feet of carpet. Nada. None. Zilch. Tile throughout, and hardwood laminate in the entry. But you can't exist totally without carpet; if nothing else, you've got to have entry rugs.

And where do the Bad Dogs puke?

Oh yes, on the freakin' doorway mats. Let me tell you, nothing says "welcome!" like putting your bare foot in yakked-up grass and bile as you wander out of the bedroom in the morning. And that stuff does not wash out of carpet easily.

But cleaning up dog puke isn't always a big deal. Particularly when it's yakked-up dog food.

You hard-core dog people know where I'm going with this, right?

I was hanging out at the Florida house last summer with Girl Child. Casey started making that fabulous sound in the kitchen (over the tile, having somehow missed the rug). She proceeded to launch most of her Dog Supper, which she'd just consumed in about 35 seconds.

Girl child looked at me, horrified. We'd just finished cleaning the floors. I looked back at her.

"Let's go out the front door and I'll have a smoke," I said.

She looked at me - weren't we going to clean up that big, nasty pile of dog yak?

We walked outside, I smoked. About five minutes later, when we went back in, Casey was wandering out of the kitchen licking her chops. As for the puke - a quick spritz of the licked-clean tile with some bleach-based cleaner and a quick swipe of a paper towel rendered it sterile.

Alas, only Casey helps out in this department. The other two just puke and stand there staring at me until I clean it up. That, I tell them, is the real reason I love her best.