Markus Anecdotes - The Cute Dog

Written by Markus

July 2020

A friend of mine has a naughty dog, or at least is perceived as such by many. While my friend lives in another city, he owns a house where his family lives as does his dog.

This dog must have been in inventory management in a past life as he likes to rearrange things.

His biggest obsession is shoes and slippers. As soon as the last light is turned off by those living there, the dog goes to work. He collects all shoes and slippers and stacks them neatly next to his bed. He doesn’t damage them, he just collects them.

Of course the family tried to counter this, for example by blocking the space under the legs under a bedside table and put keep a pair of slippers below. In stealth, he manages at night to quietly and without damage, remove the blockade, removes the slippers and tries, as best as he can, to put back the blockade.

He will spend the whole night to collect all footwear and in the morning you’ll find him sleeping in his little bed, content with all the work done successfully.

As the humans wake up, they will start looking for their slippers and shoes, find them at our friend’s bed, put them on and every day go their own way. This while our friend may wonder “oh no, I need to do it all again”.

On a Wednesday, the mother of the family wanted to talk about the dog’s behavior to my friend. My friend asked me for advice and as I didn’t take it very serious and was in a joking mood I said: “Sure, but life for the dog is also not easy. Imagine every day you build a house, only to find it dismantled every morning and you have to start all over”,

the dog is just helping.

There are 5 people living in that house and all of them are always looking where they left their shoes and slippers. Now they don’t have to search as they’ll always be next to the dog’s bed”, “I saw in a picture that your sister’s baby was laughing in the background.

Are you sure it’s the dog and not that evil baby”, and the best of all four: “Don’t you own the house and own the dog? Isn’t it so that they are actually a guest in the dog’s house instead of the dog would live with them? Isn’t the dog the master of the house?”.

I realized my friend takes me more serious then I was aware as soon the discussion between my friend and his mother escalated and he started to use my jokes as arguments.

He told his family: “be happy someone cleans up your mess every night” and “be happy you’re allowed to live with my dog and if you don’t like it, then go.”

The result was something that the dog liked: they bought 20 pairs of slippers and hid them all over the house, while they put their own shoes and slippers higher up where the dog could not reach. They walk him 5 times and he got allocated half the living room as his domain. My friend is now on daily updates by video on the well-being of the dog.

Though of course this is not how it should go, often I giggle myself into sleep, knowing that this little dog is now considered king of the castle.

And on a side note, for the rest, the dog is very well behaved and trained and acts as a small house-dog should act. Just not when it comes to slippers and shoes.