KALLEMANN ...   helps running the household

Hi Dad,

Guess what: now I even get mail by the KTR-Reporter! Unfortunately not from you, but a nice female from Austria wrote to me. She does Agility as well, but it's so far away. Probably we will never meet in a competition.

I had to do so much last year: As my mistress has to work a lot in the evenings I got accustomed to helping out a little running the household. I assume that she will have much more time to play with me, then.

What I like best is cleaning the guinea pigs. When I see my mistress fetching the container I rush into the office full of excitement, sit down below the desk and watch carefully that none of them escapes. After all I feel responsible then to catch them again. I would love to pinch them one time! When my mistress holds one of them up in front of me, I will get very stiff, as I get so excited. I will certainly be beaten, if I take a snap at them, so I better let go. But when my mistress cleans the birds, she will send me out of the room. Since the disaster with the budgies, when two of them died, she has no longer put trust in me. It is so embarrassing! Afterwards I go there to look whether everything is really clean and spread out the dirt all over the apartment such as sawdust, straw and corn glumes. After that it is much easier to see if the vacuum cleaner has been passed everywhere. By the way, I am a little at the loggerheads with the vacuum cleaner. On the one hand I am a little afraid of it, but on the other hand I bark at it and bite into its nozzle. It works best when it just turns around the corner not aware of me standing on the opposite side! Sometimes even Chico tries to help me, so it's two against one!

One of my favorite activities is making the bed: Every time my mistress straightens up the blanket I have to look if there is still one of my toys hidden under it. Sometimes my mistress likes playing mole with me: She hides a toy pet under the blanket and I have to look for it (this always makes my hair quite messy!).
When my mistress doesn't have time for it I will make Chico's bed in the meantime: He has got a cloth-bed with a support to take out. I use to crumple it up a little and cloak it diagonally. I think it's much more comfortable to lie down. I don't like the order of the two carpets from Tibet in the living-room either. My mistress always lays them down a little staggered. She considers this being the best, but I think it's nice to lay them separatedly in the living-room. Chico and I usually lie on them when nibbling on a chewing bone. It is very practical to wipe one's snout on it after having eaten. So it's much more useful to keep a certain space between the carpets to prevent us from quarreling.

I have a great deal to do in the living-room anyway. When I find it necessary for my mistress to clean the glass table I use a great trick to get her doing it. Every time she pours herself a glass I lick her elbows while sitting on the sofa. The result is that she spills everything and has to fetch a cloth!
Chico and I deal with the crumbs on the floor ourselves: If cheese or pretzel sticks fall down on the floor , we will be very happy about it. Crisps are not that bad either. I don't think little onions from the tomato salad taste that well, but the carpet below the table has to stay clean, after all!
To my astonishment there are never as many things falling down in the kitchen. There we must also "tidy up ourselves ", though, meaning that we have to go into our baskets. Our kitchen is so small that our mistress would stumble over us otherwise. Sometimes we get something after all, such as a piece of a hard-boiled egg. Eggs are really something great. Once in a while we get an egg yolk in our food. When our mistress opens some to make a cake, Chico will rush at her straight. I wonder whether there could be one falling down once? Unfortunately we never get a single piece of the dough, although it always tastes so fine (you know, sometimes we catch some little pieces dropping onto the floor). My mistress always warns us that too much sugar is quite bad for us. But at Christmas time we get our own cookies baked - with extra small baking dishes. We even have some baking dishes shaped like a bone. Last year there were even cookies covered with chocolate - dogs' chocolate, of course. That was great!

When my mistress enters the cellar, I will follow her, most of the times. I must take care that nothing happens to her - after all it's quite dark down there and besides there is also some delicious food for us which keeps well. I help carrying it upstairs: I can, of course, carry my bones myself, so my mistress doesn't have to do this. Strangely enough that the people in the elevator always consider this to be very funny. 

If I want the large mirror in the hallway to be cleaned, I will once again do the work in advance: When it's raining I will simply go in front of the mirror and shake the raindrops out of my fur after our walkies. So the mirror is already sprayed and only needs some wiping.
I have a similar way to show that the bed linen is to be cleaned. Why do we live near a loamy field anyway? Well, but my mistress actually doesn't like the dirty footprints on the sheets at all! Somehow it's really no longer fun to do it, as my mistress keeps dark sheets all the time now, so the dirt is no longer visible that well.

We tidy up my toys at least twice a week: My mistress tells me the place where they lie and I fetch them and carry them into the big basket then. I often let them disappear in a flash again under the table, but my mistress realizes it most of the times! When all the toy pets are in the basket, Chico will lie next to them forbidding me to take them out again. It's so mean, because they are all mine after all! 

Do you also help your mistress running the household or do you have employees for that?
Well, I know so little about you - if only you would write to me once again!

Yours