Of Dogs and Trees

I bought a 1.21 m (4 ft.) Picta Dieffenbacia Tree today at Walmart. Those of you who know me may be wondering why in the world would I do that? I do not have plants in my house and I do not enjoy shopping at Walmart. As a matter of fact, the tree is not even "real." The tag tells me that it is "new material only, content polystyrene foam."

I love plants and years ago I had quite a few of them in my house. When the kids grew up and I began working outside of the home, I found my plants were dying and the ones that were still alive, looked very sad indeed. Real plants need time and effort put into them to stay beautiful looking and healthy. I may start up my plant collection again but for now, there aren't any here.

Personally, I do not feel that "fake" plants belong in my house. It's either real or nothing at all. I know that there may be some of you who have them in your houses and that's fine. I do not condemn you. I just don't want them in my place. They get dusty and tired looking, just like the real ones so I'd rather not have them here. I'm a bit of a snob that way. If it can't be real, I don't want it. This goes for bacon bits, cheese whiz and carob chips too. Give me the real stuff or don't give me anything at all.

So, why did I buy the fake dieffenbachia?

Well, it has to do with Sammy. He's been with us for almost 3 months and we are getting pretty comfortable with one another. Wes and Sammy attended obedience classes and passed. (The certificate is on the 'frig, right next to Kristen's report card.) Sammy can sit, shake, go down and stay. We're still working on come. However, Sammy has decided that the landing to the 3rd floor of our house is a good place to do his business. We would find little "gifts" from him and Wes would dutifully clean them up and spray something on the carpet that would supposedly deter Sammy from doing it again. It seemed to work. No more brown turds.

Last week, I smelled something as I was going up the stairs and upon closer inspection of the carpet, noticed that there were yellow stains there. Sammy wasn't doing his big business there anymore but it seems that he felt that peeing was acceptable.

Not in this house.

I rented a steam cleaner from Safeway and cleaned up the mess.

Now that the carpet is clean, I want to keep Sammy away from there and this is where the fake tree comes in. Sammy is still very timid. He's afraid of the garbage cans on trash day, he doesn't like my gym bag sitting on the kitchen floor and he's skittish about the vacuum cleaner. I thought that perhaps I should put something "scary" on the landing to keep him away. Hence, the tree. I'm cashing in on his timidity and hoping that the tree will scare him away from the landing.

Hopefully, I won't have to buy any more fake trees.