lifebsideben

I had to be at work pretty early yesterday to be on a phone call with folks in India, so I took the earlier train (7:30am). On my way to the station I typically walk through the post office parking lot, and this particular time I noticed a dog in the lot, eating scraps from a discarded pizza box. It looked like he had tags, and was of a breed (I suck at identifying dog breeds, but it seemed to be a fairly fancy one.) Also, I recognized the dog, but I wasn’t sure from where. I thought it might even be my next-door-neighbor’s, and I know theirs had gone missing at least once before. I decided I should see if there was a phone number on his tags, because if it were my dog, I’d definitely want someone to let me know where my dog had run off to…

Now, I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to bother dogs while they’re eating, but this guy was pretty halfheartedly picking through pizza remains, and I approached slowly, speaking in a calm voice. I managed to get to his collar, and rotate it around to the tags, and noticed this dog was positively filthy. Smelled bad, greasy coat, just gross. But, there was a tag with a name (”Moxie” I think it was) and a phone number. I called the number and someone answered and said something I didn’t quite catch, and I asked “Do you have a dog named Moxie?”, they replied “Yeah…”. I asked “Is he lost?” and they said “No, no, he’s just running off the leash–where is he?”. I told the man, and he said “oh, that’s right across the street from here. It’s fine.” I said, “uhm, ok…” and hung up. Then I realized what he had said when he answered the phone was the name of a bar a half block away, and that I had seen this dog lying on the sidewalk in front of that bar before.

So this got me pretty irritated–one, that this dog looked pretty pathetic, and was so dirty, and apparently at least somewhat hungry, and had a good chance of getting hit by a car; and two, that my hand was now pretty gross from touching the dog, and I wanted to buy a bagel, but didn’t want to touch anything I was going to eat, for sure. The bagel joint I like doesn’t have a public restroom, so I ended up going to Starbuxx just so I could use their bathroom. And since I felt a little guilty about just using their restroom, I bought a hot chocolate (for $2.70!!) which wasn’t even very good. I kept thinking about poor Moxie though.

Tags: bitching, pets

Today was the first day in my son’s 10+month life that he really got directly exposed to the word “no”. Seems kind of sad, but it was truly necessary, even if it’s probably my own fault.

A few days ago we were feeding Alex and the cat, as he usually does, came around to see what was going on, and beg for food, what have you. Since we were actually feeding Alex some small bits of chicken, and I was in a generous mood, I gave the cat some. The cat then wanted some more, and it was easier to grab a piece off of Alex’s tray and drop it to the floor for the cat, than get more from the bag. Here the trouble began. Alex apparently saw this, and decided the next day that he’d try and feed the cat too. So while he was eating some veggie puff things, the cat came around, and –plop– Alex dropped on one the floor near the cat. Of course, these being vegetable-and-starch-based items, the cat would have none of it, but it didn’t stop Alex. Another one was dropped. We switched to his main course (something from a bottle) and he stopped, I presume because he liked it too much to try and share with the cat. Seemed to be the last of the cat-feeding behavior…

Until today, of course. Val calls to say “well, I have a lot to thank you for today, including now that Alex won’t eat anything, he only wants to drop things on the floor for the cat!” I thought she was exxagerating, but when I got home and fed him dinner, sure enough, the cat came around, and Alex meticulously picked up the items (more veggie puffs, unfortunately for the cat) and dropped them carefully over the side of the tray. Neither I, nor the cat, was impressed. He seemed very happy with himself doing this, as well. So I looked at him plainly, and as he moved his arm over the edge to drop one, said firmly “No”, and moved his arm back. This just elicted smiles of joy and repeated behavior. I tried not to mirror this, and instead encouraged him when one actually made it into his mouth. But I don’t think this is going to be resolved quite that quickly, unfortunately.

I was sad that I had to say ‘no’, probably 10 times, to him today. But he knew was he was doing, and he needed to know it wasn’t acceptable. But until now, he’s pretty much never done anything “wrong”, intentionally, as far as I could tell. It’s sort of sad, but I guess it’s gotta start sometime. I’m sure, if there is any karma or justice in this world, I’m going to have a bit of a bad little kid to make up for my behavior as a child

Tags: parenting, pets