When Aubrey Fette’s phone buzzed with a message from her husband, she wasn’t expecting it to come via their robot vacuum.
“I think it’s absolutely absurd that our electronic devices are sending us text messages,” Fette told The Dodo. “But my husband loves gadgets, so here we are.”
Her husband had forwarded a screenshot from the vacuum’s app — a new notification proudly announcing it had “detected a new rug” in their bathroom. The app even suggested: Try carpet cleaning.
Fette opened the attached photo from the vacuum’s floor map and immediately burst into laughter.
“You know how people type ‘lol’ but don’t actually laugh? I truly laughed out loud,” she said.
The “new rug” the vacuum had mapped wasn’t a rug at all. It was their giant, fluffy Borzoi, Leo, stretched out across the bathroom floor like a piece of décor.
“This has never happened before, and we’re on our third robot vacuum, so it was quite a surprise,” Fette said.
Social media couldn’t believe it either when she shared the screenshot — Leo looked comically large compared to the size of their bathroom. But Fette insists it’s accurate.
“That really is how small our bathroom is and how large our dog is,” she said. “Leo takes up the whole floor. And he does not move if you need to use it. I have to step over him when I get in and out of the shower.”
Leo’s bathroom obsession is long-standing. He was once banned from the room for unrolling toilet paper just for fun — but now that he’s earned his way back in, he rarely leaves.
“Leo has a very long, pointy nose,” Fette said. “He uses it as a wedge to pop the lid on the toilet and get a drink every now and then. Why would he ever leave? He’s got everything he needs — cool tile floors, air conditioning, and a water source.”
While the vacuum’s confusion might have been a technical error, it perfectly captured life with Leo — full of surprises, laughter, and a lot of fur.
“The message from the vacuum was hilarious and unexpected,” Fette said. “But honestly, with Leo around, we’ve learned to expect the unexpected.”
