Although I didn't know it at the time, I made a prediction of sorts when I wrote:

(Shmogg hates devon by the way. Fluff will eat cat poo, so there is no point discussing her food tastes).

Little did I know that less than 3 hours later, Fluff's bad taste would manifest itself again, demonstrating once and for all that her taste buds must be screwed up.

Picture the laundry, after a day's heavy use by Shmogg: two solid deposits in the litterbox, and of course, kibble scattered all over the floor. Shmogg is *not* a delicate nibbler (hence the half-pig, half chicken epithet).

I'm tired, having had a hard day reading the newsgroups, watching TV, nattering to my friends on the phone, generally lounging around in my dag clothes and enjoying my Joel-free day. I just couldn't be *bothered* sweeping up all that kibble and chucking it in the bin.

Meanwhile, Fluff has tried to imitate Shmogg's "Help, please feed me, my owner is a big bastard and is trying to starve me to death" look, and adds another gloop of dog-drool to the ever increasing collection in the carpet near the laundry.

The idea light came on. Mind you, this was the same sort of idea that lead me to melting my toothbrush, meaning it was "A good Idea At The Time" sort of thought. Ahhhhh, I think, Fluff likes cat kibble. Fluff doesn't mind eating the stuff off the floor (Shmogg for some reason doesn't like his wet food in a bowl, and doesn't like his dry food *not* in a bowl) and it seemed a shame just to throw almost perfectly good kibble away again, so I encouraged Fluffy into the laundry.

I'll give her her dues, she was hesitant, which means the constant, repetitive training about *not* going into the Cat Room, err, Laundry, has to some extent, sunk in. It should have, considering we have repeated the shout of "No!" every fifteen minutes or so when Fluffy has tried to break down the shut laundry door every single day Fluff has lived in our home. It's only been about 8 months, so we are progressing. Well, not going directly backwards anyway.

So I lead her into the laundry and pointed out the mess of kibble on the floor. She looked at me for approval, and, seeing she didn't get another "No! Bad Dog!" for looking at the kibble longingly, started to clean up the mess for me.

Seeing things were going well, I quickly ducked into the next room, the loo, to attend to some urgent business.

Just as I had got down to the job at hand, I smelt foul, noxious odour. Knowing I hadn't had curry the night before, I had little doubt about where it was coming from.

"Fluffy! No! Bad Dog!"

Idiot dog had left all the kibble bar the one piece I saw her consume, and had started munching on the pre-digested cat-food instead. But of course, she didn't want to eat that crap in the laundry. Oh no, she had to join me in the smallest room of the house. Did I mention that its a bit of squeeze? So now there's cat-shit covered cat litter scattered outside of the toilet & laundry on the carpet (which in my long-distant memory was once clean and pristine), a smear of cat crap on the door and wall as Fluff pushed open the door with her snout, and a very happy dog munching *the* most aromatic cat shit in a very small, confined room, with me in it.

Do I have to tell you that there wasn't enough loo paper to a)do my business AND b) remove the remains of the cat crap from her mouth? Its bad enough sitting in there when its your own odour offending your nose, but its a bit much to ask a mere human to stay sane when a mind-boggingly stupid dog is gassing you with the combination of cat shit and her own silent-but-deadly cat-shit-induced emissions.

What I pondered on, while trying not to gag, was how Fluffy can possibly pass up perfectly good cat kibble in favour of Shmogg's pre-digested breakfast.

My thoughts didn't last long though.

She licked my leg, as the last of Shmogg's ex-breakfast with bonus dog drool slid off my undies and hit my foot.

All I can say is it must be love.

And another shower.

Copyright © Vicky Chapman
July 2, 2000