Vacuum Cleaner as Temperament Test

You have to excuse the crappy lighting in all of these pictures; I do my vacuuming at 4 a.m. when I have insomnia.

The way a dog reacts to the vacuum cleaner tells you something about the dog.

Frieda runs around it, barking hysterically, and darts at it, trying to bite, but then loses her nerve and runs away.

It's like she's fear biting the vacuum.

Kind of like she tries to do with people.

I couldn't even get a good picture; they all came out blurry because she moves so fast.

That's all I saw too -- just a black and tan blur trying to eat my vacuum.

Arthur, on the other hand, just lies there and refuses to look at it.

Like he thinks if he doesn't acknowledge it, it won't come any closer.

I was very tempted to vacuum up a little of his tail, just to see whether he would react then.

But I didn't.

I moved away from him instead and vacuumed somewhere else.

So in Arthur v. Vacuum, Arthur was the winner.

I do have one sensible dog.

Raider moved to the kitchen and went to sleep there, and ignored the vacuum.

As for Oakland, she was so busy running from door to window to door to window, barking aggressively at the thunder outside, that she never even noticed the vacuum was on.

What a dimwit.

My house is nice and noisy at 4:00 a.m.

Sometimes I feel bad for my neighbors, but then I think about their all-nighters sitting in the front yard smoking pot and listening to salsa music, and I don't really feel bad after all.