Dog ownership suitibility test #1

If you're contemplating getting a dog, there are a number of steps you can take to see if you are suitable to be a dog owner. You can borrow a friend's dog and take it to the park. You can volunteer at a shelter. You can dog sit for a weekend.

These activities are a good start, but to truly know if you are compatible, you need to know what having a dog in your own living space will be like. I have devised a number of suitability tests. This first one is called Dog Dirt.

1. Ask your hairdresser to collect a full grocery bag of hair clippings.

2. Dump the hair clippings in a garbage bag.

3. Add a couple shovel fulls of dirt from your backyard to the garbage bag. For added realism, take it from your flower beds. Especially if they've been freshly planted. Overturn the rest of the bed for good measure.

4. If it is spring, add a few cups of water to the bag.

5. If you want a short haired dog, throw in a handful of lawn clippings and leaves. If you want a long haired dog, add a shovel full.

6. Mix well. If you have any black clothes or clothes that collect lint badly, you may wish to add them to the bag now, because you can forget about wearing them again if you do get a dog.

7. Take the bag inside your house and lightly sprinkle the mixture over the floor, the furniture, and everything else you own. Throw extra under the furniture.

8. If you have forced-hot-air heating, throw a little down the air ducts to make sure the dust and fur billows around properly when the heat comes on.

9. Sweep, vacuum, and mop up the mess. While you're cleaning, have a friend or spouse trail behind you sprinkling dirt and hair over all the areas you just cleaned. Have them lay in any dirt piles you accumulated and haven't swept into the dustpan yet.

10. If your spouse or friend is willing, ask them to eat some grass clippings or anything else found outside on the ground and throw it up on the floor. Ideally this should occur when you have company. Clean it up.

11. Make a sandwich. Put a some strands of hair in it. Pick the hair back out and eat the sandwich.

If you can live with this, congratulations! You've passed suitability test #1 of dog ownership.

Stay tuned next week's suitability test when we use a chisel and a hammer to hack random gouges in baseboards and moldings and then un-stuff a couch.