Covered

I think I've probably eaten about a puppy's worth of dog hair since I moved in with my now-husband four years ago. We have an awesome 10-year-old black lab who sheds like a cheap shag carpet. We've tried "Furminating" him, to no avail - within a couple days after vacuuming the house, tiny furry tumbleweeds spin gently down our hardwood hallway. It's maddening.

The dog is amazing, though. His post during the day is at our bedroom window (right where I lay my head). From this perch, he surveys his domain, and protects us from harm. God help the person who'd ever want to break into our house; when FedEx delivers a package to our door, he raises his alarm and goes tearing for the front of the house screaming, "INTRUDER! INTRUDER!!!!" with a bark so intense, it shakes your chest; the postman, of course, is his mortal enemy. He's the bearer of good tidings, too: when my husband comes home from work, the dog sees his car turn the corner 50 yards away, gives an excited yelp, and starts dancing and woofing (loudly) to go out and see his Daddy. (When the Munchkin is trying to sleep, all of these activites send me through the roof.) 

Unfortunately, by the end of the day, my spot on our bed is disgusting. Every night before I go to sleep, I take a super-sticky tape lint roller and attack my pillow; every night I end up using two sheets of tape because there's so much damn dog hair. I should own stock in the lint-roller company.

Short of vacuuming daily (which, with the Munchkin, and my OCD vacuuming method, is next to impossible) I just have to suck it up - literally. I can't tell you how often I end up feeling a dog hair in my mouth and frantically claw the back of my tongue until it's out - I shudder to think how much the Munchkin's already ingested. One morning, I saw a tiny piece of dog hair sticking out of the Munchkin's eye, and wiped it away with a clean, moist cotton ball, and wiped, and wiped - with each wipe it grew longer, until it finally emerged from the place it was trapped behind his eyeball at about an inch long. Bleeeeeeeeeheheheh.

I'll frequently open a new toy for my son, or pour a bowl of cereal for myself, only to find that, in the time it's taken me to unwrap the package/prep the bowl, a dog hair or two has already found its way on/in it. Even when the dog is nowhere to be seen, and the house has just been scrubbed. How is this possible??

Tummy time for the Munchkin is always fun - depending on how long it's been since the last good sweep, I'll put him down, and he'll roll over almost immediately (he hates tummy time) with random canine fur covering his little outfit, and a few on his face for good measure. And no matter how I try to brush off the hairs, they either a) stay stuck to his face unless I pinch them off, or b) move closer to his eyeball, mouth, or nostril, whichever one I'm trying to prevent them from entering. Sigh.

I've pretty much resigned myself now to the fact that, no matter what I do, the dog hair will win. I take my preventive measures, and then, just let it be. It's great that my son gets to grow up with this fabulous animal. To rid the house of dog hair entirely would be to rid the house of the dog. And both the Munchkin and his Daddy love the dog to pieces. I do, too, of course. I just wish those pieces would stop finding their way down my throat.