I love surprises when I get home

Anyone out there have a lab? Goodness! I have blogged before about our dogs, they are both wonderful but geez! Today just about pushed me over the limit to banish our lab (C'mere is his name) outside for good!!

I came home, while on the phone with Jenna, to a very and I mean VERY fowl spell that hit me as soon as I walked in my house! Yuck!! So while I ventured in to see what had happened, I found C'mere in my favorite chair (he thinks it's his and it drives me nuts!) with his head already hanging low and giving me the sappy brown eyes. He had gotten into our kitchen trash can and pulled out almost everything! There was trash all over, that was the good part though. I went further down the hall and found a huge surprise all over my carpet. Evidently the trash he ate didn't set to well in his belly and came out all over my floor. I wasn't as mad as I usually am, probably because the smell was horrible and just wanted it cleaned up but man. One thing is for sure, I do not look forward to cleaning up poo with a kid if it smells anything like what I experienced today!

So my question, which is the point of this entire post, has two parts:

1. While I don't want C'mere to stay outside all the time, I need some pointers as to what to do to keep him off my furniture. Not that our furniture is super nice but he sheds pretty bad and it drives me crazy to have blonde dog hair on my furniture and clothes all time.

2. I'm not sure how to break him of the habit of getting into the trash. We don't have a cabinet tall enough to put our trash can in so unfortunately unless we want to take the trash out repeatedly by using a small trash can we have to keep the big trash can by our kitchen island. Any ideas???

Dave and I FINALLY compromised about leaving him outside during the day (only if it's not super hot) and let him come in when we are home. And that was a long time coming, Dave did not want to budge on that topic but we "talked" it out and decided it was for the best.........you know that whole talking thing DOES work sometimes ;)