Dog-Dog

My son loves our family dog and the feeling is mutal. It's like a big furry love fest at our house every day. Baby C calls the dog "Dog Dog"; it comes out "Daw Daw" (We're working on the "g" sound). When I was preggers with my son I was really worried about the dog. She was my baby before my baby. How would she react to a baby? Well, the amazing thing was that Baby C became her baby. The dog tried to sniff the baby all the time (which freaked me out), but I don't know if that was the equivalent of the dog making sure that was in fact our baby. If C started crying the dog would come looking for me, ears perky, taking a few steps toward Baby C's room and then backing up to see if I was coming along.

The funny thing about the dog is that she's not just a dog, she and Baby C are best buds... well, the kind of best buds with a love/hate relationship. Most of the time, Baby C wants to share his snacks with our wonder-mut (which drives me nuts). He'll sit down next to our 85 pound yellow lab and put a cracker in his mouth, and then give one to Dog-Dog. One for C, one for Dog-Dog. When you tell him that the snacks are for him, not Dog-Dog he'll just say "No! Dog-Dog" and keep doing what he's doing. Other times, when Baby C has snacks he doesn't want to share I'll hear a high pitched squeal and then "NO!" I'll turn around; there's the dog, eating the baby's cookie and Baby C with his pouty lower lip out.

Despite their on-again, off-again food/love relationship, they're buddies. One of the most endearing things that the dog does (and one of the most annoying) is that she gets up and checks on my son in the middle of the night. I first realized this was part of her nightly routine when she had a growth removed and had to wear one fo those big radar dishes to keep her from taking out her stiches. At 2AM I heard a weird scraping. It was the dog trying to get through Baby C's door frame. The dish was too big and she couldn't maneuver through the door frame. She kept attempting to get through the door frame but would always hit the frame, causing her to stop. I'd hear "crash, scrape, scrape". Until then I didn't know this was a nightly ritual. 


The other night Baby C was up at 2AM ... again... I sent my husband in to check on him. As my husband was walking into Baby C's room, who was walking out? Dog-Dog, acting as if it was a normal occurrence. Of course, by the time my husband reached my son he was pointing and yelling "Daw-Daw".

Unfortunately, Dog-Dog is sick and has less than 2 years to live (sniff, sniff). If she makes it to Baby C's 4th birthday it will be a blessing. Given that we're dog people we're already thinking about our next dog and maybe if we get a puppy now that Dog-Dog can help "train" the puppy. Maybe we should getting a "Nanny Dog", like in Peter Pan. What kind of dog was that? Mastiff? Noufie? Regardless, we should get one and make sure the dog can heard the kids. Does anyone know a dog trainer that can help us train the dog to heard the kids?