Dork Does Laundry

Houston, we have achieved all new levels of Dork. I repeat, new levels of Dork.

I was feeling like hell this morning (thanks to a bit of rain and the barometer change), so I had Duncan drag the laundry into the laundry area. I bent to unload the first bit and went, “Nope, not today. Hey Muttly, come back here and be more useful.” He came trotting over (the handful of little puppy treats may have helped. I need to work more on weaning him off, but he’s still not sure the laundry machines are neutral, and not soul-sucking demons.) I debated upending the hamper, but I don’t even feel up to doing that, so he was going to have to learn to get things out of the hamper.

I point to the laundry hamper, a black collapsible fabric drum, approximately 30 gallons. He grabs the top rim, just like he’s been taught. “Nope, get in,” says I, thinking he’d put his head in and look and I could cue the retrieve from there. More fool me. The Dork Dog gives me a most doubting look, then hops up and puts both feet on the laundry and starts trying to lift his hind feet into the barrel, too. Okay, “in” is not the word I’m looking for. I laugh at him, praise him, and head back out of the laundry area.

I grab my laser pointer. Duncan is NUTS for a laser pointer, so it is something we don’t play with much anymore. If not for the fact that it was one of the things we worked “leave it” on and something he’s had two semesters of exposure on ignoring (I was not going to have my SDIT run up and try to climb the wall to “get the bug” in class), I’d guess he’d be full blown OCD on the little Cursed Dot. As it is, when I picked up the little plastic mouse (cat toy), he starts a full butt-swinging wag.

Head back to the laundry, step on the side of the hamper, so there’s a clear line of sight for him to see the clothes in the hamper. I point the laser into the pile and say “get that”, turning off the light just as he reaches to bite the dot. He backed off a little, and in that split second, I said “get that” again (oh, how I wish I used something simpler like “fetch”, but I can’t seem to train myself.) However, “get that” is not “get the bug” and he glanced back, then grabbed for a pair of pants and delivered them to hand. Nicely done! Here, half a puppy-sized cookie. (Mom thinks he should negotiate for a better pay grade.)

Much of the rest of the load went similarly, with a little confusion on if I still wanted him to get clothes, or if he was supposed to grab the hamper rim like we’d worked on. A simple “nope” as a no reward marker for rim grips to get him on to trying something else, and he had that hamper unloaded quickly. It was interesting to watch his body language go from a game of “get the bug” interrupted by retrieves, to seeming to grasp the idea of the laser pointing to things he should grab and bring to me. Baby steps, yet, but I may be inspired to expand this into other things. I like the sound of a “laser-guided retrieve.”

Just before we finished, Mom called from the other room to have me bring her the grabber stick. I pulled it off the hook behind the washer and handed it to Duncan. There were some difficulties in getting bulky item through the doorways, but he managed. He then started to race back to me unloading the laundry. I sent him back to Mom and told him to wait. She got what she’d dropped from behind the couch, then handed him the grabber stick again. Ocho, who had wandered over to see what was going on (and if there might be food in it for him) ducked away from the Dork with a Stick! so fast he bopped his noggin on the coffee table. Poor old man, gets in the way and then can’t gracefully get out of the way.

Duncan chose not to run over the old man, running instead for the gap between the magazine rack and the reclining chair, where he stopped short. More than once he’s rammed himself in a doorway or other narrow area by not remembering how big the thing he was carrying was, so it was very nice to see him look at that gap, then look at me like “It no fit?” instead of attempting to *make* it fit. I told him to “go around” and signaled he should head back out past the recliner (i.e. go out the way he went in). He was very happy with that little bit of help, dropped the grabber stick in my hand when asked, and then looked at the laundry like “let’s DO this!” I love my Dork. He’s managing to make chores more amusing and exciting.

I even had him nose nudge the washer door more toward closed, which was a mind-bender for him (I didn’t want to have him close it all the way. The machine noises still bother him, after the old, dying washer shook so hard it dropped things on him as he went past). The machine! It MOVED! And it didn’t eat him! He was very, very enthusiastic on hauling the empty hamper back to my room. Probably a mixture of being proud of himself and glad to be away from the machines.

He’s all sprawled out sleeping now. Hard brain work makes for tired pups. Which is good, because today is supposed to be our “cold front” day where we’re “only” forecast to get up to 91!

And in the time it took me to type that up, the load finished. The laser pointer is definitely increasing his drive to reach into the machine, but it’s also a bit of a distraction on actually grabbing clothes and backing out with them. Two steps forward, one step back. The laundry task is still new. We’ll get there. And he’s asleep again. So nice to have him conk out instead of bug me for things to do.