I believe it is time for somebody to write a book titled, The Fur-Lined Homeowner's Guide to Dogs. I won't be writing it. But my lack of productivity is not based on my lack of interest, or my lack of insight. It's because I'm vacuuming and I just can't stop.

Help me, please!

I have two dogs. Or I should say my family has two dogs. Both come from the pound. These are lovable, cuddly, cute little balls of fur that somebody else had the foresight to treat badly, then abandon. Their loss in our gain. Because I truly love our dogs and wouldn't want to spend a day without them. But they shed. In fact, they shed a lot.

Every corner of my house is a fur-lined mess.

Annie is twelve years old, more or less. She's blond, beautiful, terrified of thunderstorms, and enjoys sleeping and eating more than anything. If she's not doing one, she's doing the other.

Sally is the newcomer. She's no more than four years old, runs at full speed even if she's only going three feet away, and once got so exuberant that she ran headlong into the glass door leading to the back porch. Apparently she thought it was open. It wasn't.

My daughters named the dogs. They evidently prefer the pedestrian to the exotic. Annie and Sally. They're not exactly adventurous names. The dogs themselves are pretty ambitious, though.

When Annie was young she could clear the six foot fence in our back yard. She only did this when she was hunting squirrels, which she is thankfully too old and creaky to do which much success anymore. There was a time when she was a real threat to the squirrel population of central Florida, however. I believe the squirrels taunt her now – just because they know they can.

Sally isn't a killer. She's a thinker. She takes notice of squirrels and birds, and creatures that scurry through our yard. But she doesn't seem to have the slightest inclination to cause them harm. Except lizards. She's the scourge of the lizard community. She roots them out with wild abandon. In fact, she'll spend the bulk of her day on the back porch hunting lizards, if I let her.

I put up with a lot from these dogs. They both lay at my feet as I write this. But I'm not dumb enough to think they stand guard because they love me or wish to keep me company. Nope. They're waiting for me to drop a piece of cheese, or crumbs from a crispy piece of toast, or a Brussels sprout. They don't care. If it hits the ground, it's gone. Someone will ingest it. Someone named Annie, or Sally will lap it up way before the five second rule comes into play. Then again, I'm not sure the five second rule applies to dogs.

Uh, oh. I just realized I referred to the dogs as, “someone.” That makes them practically human. I've inadvertently elevated them to a status that is equal to that of my daughters and my wife – and myself.

I can live with that. I can live with the dogs too. And the fur they leave all over the house. Because they've wheedled their way into my heart, and it has been decades since I woke up to a house that wasn't filled with the sound of dogs scampering around in blind excitement. “He's awake, he's awake – stick with him – he might drop some food again!”

I'm pretty sure that's what they're thinking. But they're so sly and beguiling, I just can't tell for sure.

Can anybody recommend a really good vacuum cleaner? There's fur on my keyboard.