A Boy and His Dog

The Kid’s dear old dadand I had dreams of The Kid and dog frolicking through fields of sunflowers,best of friends, rolling around together as happy as can be.  A boy and his dog. The great cliche of every Disney version of how a childhood should be. Lassie and Timmy. Scooby and Shaggy. Snoopy and Charlie Brown. Stewie and Brian. 

Okay, maybe less Stewie and Brian, more Timmy and Lassie.

Screw you Walt.  You, my good sir, did not take intoaccount our dog is the canine version of a crotchety old lady.  You know the one sitting on the front porchall day, yelling at the neighbor kids to keep off her lawn in between naps andincessant complaining about her arthritic hip. And she’s embarrassingly kind of racist.

That’s our dog.  While the dog/kid relationship has grownsince the first days home from the hospital, she’s not completely terrified of himanymore, but still not his biggest fan. I can’t really blame her.  She wasthe only child for nearly 9 years before he came along, those jerky grabbyflying baby fists kind of scare me too and he does smell weird most of the day.Needless to say mobility has thrown a wrench into any type of blossomingrelationship dear old dad and I had envisioned. He can now get to her wherever, whenever and she is not amused.

Poor kid. He adores her.Capital A, adores her.  Would trade inmama lady for a day of fur yanking and ear pulling kind of adores her. Hespends a good majority of his morning playtime yelling at her from the confinesof his exersaucer to get some sort of acknowledgement.  When she (un)graciously decides to throw thekid a bone (no pun intended) and look in his general direction, he squeals indelight with gratitude. I wish I could get that type of appreciation out of The Kid. I provide him with his every want and need and all I get is poopy diapers andbitten nipples.

Once in a while, I do thinkthey join forces to conspire against me.  One day lastweek, the two of them thought it would be funny to have a poop off.  Who can land a nice steamer directly on mom’s floor the most in thecourse of an hour? Dog won 2 to 1.

That being said, the doggenerally tries to avoid contact with The Kid and at best ignores his existence most of the day.  That is until The Kidis put in his high chair.  Then suddenly,they are best friends. She’s all, “hey buddy, hey pal…remember me…your oldfriend, The Dog?  We’re BFFs right kiddo? You want me to make you a friendship bracelet?  You want the other half of this heart shapedbest friend locket? I love you.”

The Kid, of course, eatsthis up.  He willingly hands over themajority of yogurt melts.  He revels inher sole attention.  He seems heartbrokenwhen she turns her nose to his offers of fruit slices and quickly doles out hisfavorite puffs to apologize for the gaffe. Dog takes her fill and moves on right after mealtime.  No obligatory cuddling, no awkward phone calls later, sheeven pretends she doesn’t know him when they see each other in the living room.  Dog has all the control in this relationshipand she knows it.  Heartless bitch.