Charles and I are dog people. I used to go both ways (dogs and cats), but Charles is allergic to cats, so I've had to pick a team. Obviously, I picked the team with the least dignity.Anyway, having had dogs for more than 10 years, we think of things in dog terms. When people used to talk about their children, we countered with tales of dog-training. I think we were both annoying and dull.
Having a baby has reinforced, though, the extent to which dogs can act as training wheels for a baby. In so many ways, figuring out Iain is like figuring out how to teach a smart animal to potty outside: takes some thinking, some ingenuity, and some dedication.
One big difference persists, though.
When you raise a puppy, you say things like, "And then she looked at me like: where have you been? Don't you love me?" and everyone laughs because the joke is that you've anthropomorphized the dog. It's not a person. It didn't really look at you and think those things. And it won't ever say those things.
With Iain? A whole different world. Tonight, we tried to get him to sleep at Casa Bizzle. He wasn't having it. And at one point, when I went in to try to calm him down, he looked at me like, "where am I? Why are you trying to make me sleep here? This is not my bed, or my room, or my house!"
But when I went back to the grownups, I didn't tell them how he looked, at first. Because in my head, I was thinking "oh, he didn't really look at you like that. I mean, he's just a puppy." And then I thought, "Uh...maybe he did. Because he's not a puppy. And one day, he'll actually say things like 'where are we? I want to go home!'."
That's just freaky. That's one part the dog can't prepare you for.
1 comment:
Really, he just heard us all having such fun and wanted to join in. Once we picked him up again, he settled in to join the fun, hoping the evening would never end. Too bad, his parents (us) are old and eventually we had to retire for the night despite having such a good time. Iain would just rather party than sleep.
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