You know we love dogs at Casa Bushwhacked and life would be pretty empty without the two comedic corgis, Max and Marley.
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But there is a hefty downside to this relationship: a decidedly fluffy home.
They shed by the, well, by the shedload.
All year round they shake off kilograms of corgi-coloured hair and it only accelerates when you finish vacuuming the house for the fifth time in a week.
That happened yesterday. Thankfully a previous owner of the said casa had installed a powerful ducted vacuum system. It could suck the eyeballs out of a moose at 50 metres.
When you turn it on, our entire neighbourhood dims just a bit.
And each time, when you empty the dust receptacle into the wheelie bin, it’s as though an animal the size of a water buffalo had moved in.
We had just finished this Herculean task and admired the result. “Hey, how about that – our loungeroom carpet is green.”
Then came the predictable grr grrr grrr-ing from Max and Marley playing their corgi wrestling game in the lounge. Mad Max versus Mauler Marley. Bright sunlight was streaming through the large window and all you could see were these brown and white wombat-shapes in a thick cloud of flying hair.
“Out, out damned Spot,” Mrs Whacked ordered, channelling Lady Macbeth.
It also gets worse on hot days when we turn on the air-conditioning. The air currents seem to pick up the hair, turn it into soft tumbleweed balls and sends them under every chair, cabinet and table.
The cats love these and have been seen dragging them back into plain sight days later like so many furtive guinea pigs.
The dogs are fur factories.
We keep saying there has to be a commercial use for dog hair. Somewhere, somehow, it should be seen as a global commodity.
So far, the only creative use we’ve seen is by some of the birds which live in the bush near us. Now and then, you’ll find an old nest when has dropped from a tree, and usually, it’s beautiful lined in brown and white felt-like fur.
So, in the interest of actual research (I know, I know.) we have managed to identify some apparently genuine uses for dog hair. Some of you might like to finish your breakfast before reading on.
- Gardening. It is claimed to be an effective compost, but also keeps unwanted ferals away as they loathe the scent of dogs. Can’t say I’m too fond of it either.
- Oil spills. There’s an organisation called A Matter of Trust which collects dog hair and uses it in floating booms to contain oil spills. The hair soaks up the oil. There is a slight problem with that in Bendigo. We don’t have many oil spills on Lake Weeroona.
- Spinning yarn. Good luck with that, and what are you then going to make? A poodle pullover? The French call it “chiengora”. There is even a book available on Amazon called Knitting With Dog Hair: Better A Sweater From A Dog You Know and Love Than From A Sheep You'll Never Meet.
- Pillow stuffing. Oh come on!
- Fishing flies. Well, that’d use up about 0.00001 per cent of a corgi.
- Create animal toys. Too late. They’ve already figured that out.
- Jewelry making. It’s been known to be used to make up string for beads and pendants. But the the mutts are already enough of a pain in the neck.