Eleanor had told me some time ago that DJ is not a fan of the Dustbuster. In fact, she's demonstrated to me how he reacts. She uses the Dustbuster to clean up the food DJ has thrown overboard, and he starts to fuss almost immediately. He gets a very worried look on his face, too. Clearly, the Dustbuster scares him at some level.
Today, we decided to see how he'd react to the vacuum cleaner. I started in the back hallway and vacuumed both that and DJ's room. When I turned off the vacuum, Steve called out from the living room that DJ had been fussing, and even teared up. I was surprised to hear this since I wasn't even in his sights (and neither was the vacuum for that matter). Is it just the noise is so loud and droning?
To vacuum the living room, Steve sat on the couch with DJ on his lap. I brought the non-running vacuum cleaner over to DJ so he could see it while it was off. He touched it, but very hesitantly. I turned it on away from him, and proceeded to vacuum the living room rug. He fussed and had a very concerned look on his face the whole time, but he didn't cry.
I brought the vacuum back over to him and then turned it off so he could see it turn off. Although he wasn't pleased overall, he didn't seem traumatized. He definitely didn't want to let go of Steve for about 5 minutes afterwards either!
We'll have to work on the vacuum fears slowly. Good thing we stink when it comes to vacuuming regularly. ;-)
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