Gori Girl's Profile

Our worst incident occurred when we were away for the weekend. Our pet sitters had to rush away quickly in an emergency, but couldn't get the dogs (one Alaskan Malamute, Panda, & one German Shepherd mix, Kajol) to go into the finished-but-unfurnished basement where they stay when alone. So the pet sitters decided to jingle the dogs' leashes and make like they were going for a walk, while leading them down to the basement. Once the dogs were in the basement, they shut the door and left.

Kajol & Panda did their best to destroy the basement in retaliation for this trickery. Door frames chewed up, built-in counters chewed up, entire stretches of dry WALL chewed up... Big dogs can really do some damage when they set their minds to it. Kajol, the destroying-instigator, is now crated when left alone.

Another time, before we started crating her, Kajol shut herself in the basement bathroom by mistake while we were out. She panicked. I'm surprised she didn't break the vanity mirror - she managed to almost everything else.

Then there's the time, while crated, that she caught the edge of my down blanket, and pulled it in. It was summer, so we had a rotating fan going to keep her cool in the crate. We returned that day to see an inch of feathers covering every surface in our bedroom.

Wow, I'm really surprised by the hostility towards long stays by friends or family in these comments. Perhaps it's because I've been influenced by my husband's Indian culture, but we regularly have friends over for a week or more at a time, and his parents and my mother will come to visit for more than a month at a time - this summer my in-laws were only here for three weeks (there's new grandkids at other siblings' houses), but last time they were here for pretty much the whole summer.

When my husband and I first moved to DC we stayed with a Bangladeshi friend's older brother for about two months. *shrug* Seriously, that's totally normal and accepted for both his and my family.

Love your Mal - or is he just a big husky?

My husband is Indian, and one point he made clear when we were dating was that part of his traditional culture is that parents can - and often do - live with their adult children. While his parents currently enjoy living on their own in India, we've always been open to the idea that they might eventually want (or need) to settle in with us. In fact, we bought our townhouse with an eye towards that eventual future - the walkout basement is a proper studio apartment with its own kitchen, full bath, etc. Currently we rent it out to help with the mortgage, but it'd make a nice in-law suite too.

We have two young large dogs who are always in & out of the house (they get kicked outside when they start wrestling, which is often). If their feet are disgusting they get a rub from the dog towel; otherwise we just keep them off the furniture for a few minutes until they've wiped off the dirt/mud/water on the hardwood floors. Then the Swiffer mop comes out for quick cleanup. It helps that we have a large deck and a flight of stairs between the main entrance to the backyard and the grass and mud.

Can anyone give a review of the dirt stopper rug?

I could handle grabbing my GSD mix as she came through the door and rubbing the mud off with a rage, but we recently adopted a rescue Malamute and getting both of them to halt by the back door while I brush eight feet isn't working.