Kids and pups

“Ah, just look at them!” smiled the old lady patronisingly as she watched, from a safe, hygienic distance, my small son and his puppy playing in a mud wallow.  “Children and puppies just go together, don’t they?”

She was trite, but she was right.  In fact, during my brave efforts at rearing both these troublesome species I found a number of interesting resemblances in their upbringing.  For instance, they both need feeding one end, washing the other, and burping in the middle.

Puppies are usually born in a darkened place and only after their eyes are open in about ten days’ time do they gradually become accustomed to daylight.  It seems wrong that a human baby, born with eyes wide open, should be subjected to the harsh lights of the hospital theatre and nursery.

After their birth, I believe both babies and puppies miss, to some extent, the movement and pulse beat they were accustomed to as embryos – quite noticeable in the puppy orphaned at birth.  To some, however, the post-natal peace and quiet may come as a relief: I knew a litter of puppies that went hunting with their mother the day before they were born.  They were undoubtedly glad when the ride was over!

Puppies and babies twitch in their sleep.  Their tongues are set for sucking, even between meals.

At first they have only one way to say everything – they cry.  If it isn’t “time to pick him up”, some mothers leave the baby to cry himself out.  If a bitch does that she is accused of being a lousy mother.

When they can see clearly, both species become fascinated with your face.  One of the friendliest things you can do is bend down and let them touch your cheek.

I find that neither of them have a conscience when they are little.  “Wrong” is what gets them into trouble.  “Right” is everything  else.  “Guilt” is only fear of punishment, learned from experience.

It may not be such a good idea to try to force a kid or a pup to finish everything on the plate.  They seem to know how much they want and are perhaps better judges of what their systems find comfortable than we are.  Wanting to avoid the hassles some parents have of getting their youngsters to finish the first course before allowing them the tempting pudding, the only sweet I offered mine was fresh fruit. 

By the same theory, the puppies have raw meat.  Dogs don’t masticate.  They gulp their food, and raw meat slides down easily while cooked meat is hard and less digestible.  As they can develop a taste for cooked meat and refuse it raw, I offer them only raw meat until they are older.

Little females are easier to house/potty train than little males.

Kids and pups get up to every kind of mischief.  The brighter they are the more wicked the mischief.

I discovered that if you lower an infant or a puppy into a bath face up they stiffen with fear.  Turn them over, well supported so that their noses don’t get wet, and they hardly mind at all.  (This was by way of an experiment.  I would not normally let puppies get wet at such an early age.)  It proved to be kinder to bath the new baby this way until he got used to the water.

I am a great believer in giving kids and pups their own interesting toys.  Then if they are found with something valuable, breakable or dangerous, it can be quietly taken from them, with no fuss, and exchanged with a toy.  When they are older I get firm about, “No, don’t touch! – with “or else!” in my eyes.

It is great to be able to take the kid and the pup just about anywhere, but I do find they need some training.  When they have learned to walk to heel without pulling your arm off, to play quietly with a toy, touching nothing else unless offered to them, and, with allowances made for extreme youth, not to puddle on the floor, I can enjoy having them with me and I think this is good for them too.

            When I hear things like, “What a well behaved little dog/little boy” and “Of course, bring him along, he is never any trouble!” I feel it is worth the training.

Sometimes, kids and pups both need de-worming.  You can explain that to the mamma dog but it is quite unnecessary to mention it to your mother-in-law.

Puppies and kids will happily splash around in pools and puddles from dawn to dark.  But show them the bath tub and you’d think you were coming after them with a wire brush and caustic soda.

I think it is good for them to get used to each other, as well as to others of their own species, at an early stage.  Loyalty can grow between a child and a dog of a quality that is richer, more intense, generous and lasting than either are able to give to members of their own kind.

I admire plucky puppies and kids that stand up for themselves, but I’d hate mine to be the ones to start a fight.

Looking back on it, I see three bright milestones: when they are reliably house-trained, when they have finished teething, and when they get some road sense.

With relief you see them through one difficult “phase” after another and suddenly they are grown.  The kids kiss you goodbye and stride away to their own lives’ beckonings, and dogs grow old too soon – too soon.  And then you could wish them back again, for all their puddles and boisterous games, their teething, teasing, tears and squabbling; the hours and the objects left scattered in their wake; their little muddy footprints all over the house and all over your heart.

Some kids never grow up...

For all the similarities, no two children, no two puppies, are quite the same, even in the one family.  The guide-lines to their upbringing need to be tuned to suit the individual.  But I believe that all of them – the strong, the weak, the bold, the nervous, the difficult and the amenable – grow best if they have a stable, thoughtful home, discipline and consideration, good food, and good fun, and most of all, love.

            Love is the food and the warmth of their little lives, the security, the companionship and the caring, without which they are impoverished, no matter how balanced the diet, how modern the housing.

            Love is a soft collar, a bright necklace, clasped upon itself.  they who are loved will be loving; and to be loving is to be loved.