Sunday, March 22, 2009

Creatures of Habit

The animals are all in a tizzy in our home. You never realize how much your companions are creatures of habit until you do something that conflicts with the norm. We have put our furred children in a state of discombobulation (is that even a word?) by remodeling our laundry room. Keeping in mind we need to renovate because of our pets. I looked at many flooring options and gone are the days I seek style and texture over ease of care. My main question to the flooring salesperson "Will it be easy to clean muddy paw prints, vomit and kitty litter off of?"
You could feel the panic rising Friday as I cleared everything out of the room in prep for reconstruction. The cats started pacing and meowing. Sully the most vocal. "Lady! Meow! Meow! Where the hell are you taking my cat bed that sits on top of the dryer!" Henri our geriatric feline who sleeps most the day became more awake than ever when the dry food dish was relocated temporarily. I showed her 4 times where the bowl was but she still went back to the old location and gave me her scratchy old cat yowl to voice her displeasure with the earth shattering change. Dugan our naughty older setter immediately went about devising a plan to steal the cat food in it's new location of coarse.
The dogs also felt the need to follow my every move as I emptied the room. "What? We're temporarily moving the laundry bin into the living room? This is anarchy! I'm going to drag all the laundry out of it!" When painting began it was soon realized that both dogs and cats wanted nothing more than to assist, no matter how many times we kicked them out of the room. We all know how happy and cheery our husbands are when they are working on a home project...add three annoying cats underfoot, wet paint and dogs that keep knocking the baby gate down to get to the painter. Good times.
Flooring efforts were just as fun as cats continued to enter the work area as apparently some type of rumor was circulating that the food bowl was put back in it's former location, even though the shelf it was housed on is no longer mounted on a wall. Quizzical and accusing looks from animal companions ensue.
I guess I did not fully calculate the anxiety a 2 day home remodel project would add up to with my pups and kits and I feel a little bad. In general they all wandered around like they were lost lambs - not settling down in their usual spots like they were just really confused. As I write my hubby just pounded in the last piece of Traffic Master Allure flooring...we can start putting everything back in and get the animal's world back in order. Now how do I break it to them we're doing the master bedroom next?

3 comments:

  1. Aw...This is super funny, because its so true.

    I thought my cat was the only one who got bent out of shape when his food is moved.

    When we got a new bed we put our old one in the guest room and all night long he paces from the guest room to ours. Meowing in confusion. He just doesn't understand why we don't all sleep in that bed anymore.

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  2. Lookin' good though, all the pets will love the new laundry room! Just sit them down and have them watch TLC 'trading spaces'....they'll get the idea, but you are a MUCH better HOST! Marcy

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  3. When my parents put in new flooring throughout the house there was one point where they could only enter/exit through a bedroom window. I can just imaging them trying to get their lazy lab to figure that one out!

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