A hairy domestic situation calls for some serious relationship advice

Ask Dirk 

A hairy domestic situation calls for some serious relationship advice.

By M.D. Thalmann

Dear Dirk,

My wife is a member of a humanitarian foster group for animals. She keeps bringing home stray animals and after barely trying at all to find a suitable home, she decides to keep the dogs and cats. Our house has become overrun with animals and their hair is everywhere––on the couch, in the carpet, on our bed…I’ve even found the occasional stray hair in my morning cereal.

I’m allergic to both cats and dogs and can barely even breathe in my own home. My eyes look like cherry tomatoes. My wife tells me that it’s selfish to make her choose between me and the animals. What should I do?

––Sniffling Stan

Sniffles,

Thanks for your letter. So, I read somewhere that if you just eat a little bit of the cat or dog hair each day for a few weeks your body will build up an immunity. Wait a minute. You know what? I think that may have been peanuts. Yeah, that’s more likely, isn’t it? Peanuts. But, who can be sure? Either way, you might want to check with your doctor and see if he can’t offer a solution to your allergies.

In the unlikely event that this doesn’t solve your problem, you might want to take a more active approach. Might I suggest driving the dogs to a local shelter and helping them find new homes? The cats would never fall for this and are likely to take your ears off in the process. So, you’re going to have to go a step further and sell the house. Give the movers clear instructions that the cats are not to be taken, and just start over. You may want to leave these same instructions regarding your wife, or this hairy issue is bound to crop up once more.

If this seems a bit much, Christmas is near after all. Get some boxes with holes and a little heavy duty wrapping paper, and surprise all your relatives and co-workers with a bundle of…let’s call it joy. It’s surprisingly easy to get cats in boxes. You just get a box, open it, and voila, that’s it––the cat’s in the box.

All jesting aside, sit your wife down and explain (whilst gasping for air) that it’s not a choice between her or the animals, it’s a matter of life or death––yours.

Keep the questions coming, and remember, if you couldn’t possibly come up with a worse answer on your own, you can always leave it to the pros, and Ask Dirk.

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Men are almost four times more likely to use their pet to attract a potential date. (22 percent of men versus 6 percent of women)

35 percent of single women have been more attracted to someone because of their pet.

57 percent of men think their date’s choice in pets says a lot about their personality.

27 percent of women find photos of pets in an online dating profile a turn-on.

28 percent of single men would be turned off if a woman’s pet could fit in her handbag.

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Cat people are perceived to be much more open to relationships with dog people than dog people are to cat people.

97 percent of cat owners would have a relationship with a dog person whereas only 66 percent of dog owners are open to relationships with cat people.