The cleanliness equation

It's simple math really:  Two guys + 8 dogs = a dirty house.  Only 6 of the dogs are ours, but 2 fosters (Dugan the boxer and Jeremy the mutt) also come in at night.  The weather has been nice so more of them are spending more time outdoors during the day, but that just means they are out there collecting dirt during the day that they deposit indoors at night.   My mother arrives Tuesday afternoon so I feel the need to make a little more effort than normal, but the truth is that there's a lot of things around here that haven't been cleaned since she was last here.  And there's a year's accumulation of stuff, general clutter, much of it rather dusty. 

Perhaps we need more visitors.  What we really need is to get a cleaning service again, once a month anyway to keep us from slipping into male-patterned squalor. 

When I do a home visit, I'd rather see a dirty house than a clean one.  If the house looks pristine, I'm concerned that an incoming dog will be seen as a dirty and germ factory to be relegated certain rooms, certain places, or certain times indoors with the family.  I also worry about what will happen when the dog takes a dump on the oriental rug or barfs up the remains of a dead bird that they ate out in the yard. 

I took a dog to a guy's house one time that was devoid of furniture except for his lounge chair and the dogs' sofa.  The floors were bare and a shop vac was sitting around for use when absolutely necessary.  I could go on, but suffice it to say that it wasn't going to appear in Betters Homes & Gardens.  But it was a dog-friendly house.  The dogs had room to tear around and weren't going to get returned if they had an accident indoors, shed too much, or tracked in mud. 

My mother is not a neat-freak by any means and she certainly doesn't expect our house to be as clean as hers.  But I do need to straighten up the guest/storage room and try to remove some of the bigger, more animated, dust bunnies. I also need to have a talk with Trooper.  Gypsy learned to accept my mother's visits and Trooper will need to as well. 

We always have a good time when we get together.  They say that cleanliness is next to godliness, but here's hoping that scotch and hospitality triumph over all.

Update:  Irene is holding her own.  Still very shy, but the adopter knows it's going to take a while for her to come around.  I have to believe that the walks, the other dog, and the attention and care she will be getting will eventually put her at ease.  Big Boy seems to have a new home in the works, perhaps next weekend, with the folks who came to meet him last Friday.  It seems that they want to be part of his recovery and I think he will flourish in their care.  He's been pooping good, but we are doing another round of wormer this week just to make sure. I also need to make sure he can do stairs.  The pics here are the latest and greatest taken of him.