Puppies and Babies

A recent conversation with a friend who got a dog a few weeks after Oliver was born prompted this memory...

2 Years ago, we bought a 6 week old little boy dog named Chester. The baby Australian Shepherd was so rambunctious yet cuddly, and made our old dog, Shadow, find her puppiness again as she tried her best at 12 years old, to keep up with him -- it took all WE had to keep up with him! Although it only took about 2 1/2 weeks to have him completely housebroken, it was a long 2 1/2 weeks, what with keeping an eye on him at all times, waiting for that tell-tale sign of needing to pee, day and night...watching even closer after every meal or sip of water. Being sleep-deprived by letting him sleep on our too-high-to-jump-off-of-bed so he would wake me up to go out. Even after the potty training, buying special puppy food and trying to stop Shadow from eating it all - she was convinced the tasty, high protein puppy chow was better than the old-lady-high-fiber-chow; yet for all my watching and scolding, she still gained a good 5 pounds that first month... We couldn't be gone for more than 2 hours at a time because SOMEONE'S bladder wasn't strong enough to last much longer than that, Chester. ;) Finding the time to walk him several times a day and trying to teach a shepherd to catch and retreive a frisbee instead of corralling it, was quite a challenge. All the training, or bribing rather, for simple commands like "sit," "shake," "down," "drop," "stop chewing on that," "STOP CHEWING ON THAT," and "use your inside voice." (Yeah, anyone who knows Chester knows that command is an utter failure), to help mold our dog into the now goofball family member he has become.

At the time I was 3 months pregnant and thought, wow, this is a lot like what having a baby will be like!

I am wiser now.

One day my friend will be too :)