It's a Dog's Life

Those of you who know us well have probably been wondering when I was going to mention the other member of our family, the P dog. Until J arrived she was our "baby" and the newest member of the family turned her little world upside down. I had no intention of adopting a dog but was doing volunteer work at a shelter a few years ago when I came across a scrappy, beaten up little thing that looked like a cross between a huski and a badger. I walked into her cage, she rolled over and put her head in my lap and my heart was hers. I signed the adoption papers five minutes later and then had to work out how to tell my husband we were now dog owners.

We were a couple with a lot of love to give, and she was a broken animal in need of TLC; it was a match made in heaven. We overcompensated for her rough start in life by spoiling her rotten, and there was no hesitation when it came to bringing her with us when we moved to HK. She has adjusted well to life here and is a completely different dog to the one I found that day at the shelter, even if she is still a little funny looking. We knew that having a baby in the house would be a big adjustment for her and we planned to make some changes before J arrived, to ease the transition for the dog. We were much stricter and she was no longer allowed to sleep on our bed or have the run of the house. The first day she responded by hiding under the bed for hours but after a couple of days she seemed resigned to the fact that a new regime was here, it was as if she knew she'd had it good and had been expecting the change all along. Friends with dogs warned me that I wouldn't have much time for the dog once the baby arrived, and told me that I would probably lose my patience pretty quickly. I found that almost impossible to imagine and I swore that I would still love P just as much and would never neglect her.

Then we brought J home and we were so busy all our training and promises to P went out the window. She took advantage of our sleep deprived state and started sneaking up onto the bed in the middle of the night, she jumped up on visitors and barked at anyone within a 2km radius of the house. We tried to give her a little bit of attention every day but there were days when I had battled for hours to get J to sleep, and the thought of having to attend to the needs of another small creature was more than I could bear. She has woken him up on a few occasions and I have often contemplated turning her into a nice pashmina. She was again evicted from the bedroom recently, much to my husband's disgust. He doesn't believe it's fair to make "our daughter," as he refers to her, sleep in the study. Since we don't let J sleep in our bed I think it's a no-brainer.

When it comes to the baby/dog dynamic, we've had to work hard to placate the dog with treats and rewards whenever we show J a lot of attention. It's gotten to the point now where she wakes us up or makes a fuss when she hears him wake up. She still doesn't seem overly keen on him but he adores her. It's his first case of unrequited love. P was quite put out when J started crawling and could chase after her, and she had no idea what to think when he started growling at her! He thinks it's hilarious when she barks and he encourages her by shouting out something resembling "woof." Now that she realises he's not going to hurt her, and that standing under his highchair at dinnertime is highly beneficial, she's starting to come around.

Watching them together is quite sweet most of the time but I have to admit I do find myself losing my temper with the dog more often. She was sick last week and it was like having two children, it was that much work. On the weekend I had to look after them both by myself, which was fine, until the dog rolled in something disgusting while we were out walking and I had to bath her while trying to convince J to go down for a nap. For the rest of the morning I locked the dog between the two gates on the stairs as silent punishment, it was like a doggy version of purgatory.

I'm really looking forward to the day when J is old enough to walk and play with the dog and I won't have to worry about either of them, until then it's a delicate balance between keeping the baby safe, the dog happy and me sane.

Things that go Bump in the Night

Our little guy doesn't crawl yet. From about 6 months of age he's much preferred to walk holding on to someone's hands. Despite reading a lot of negative reports about baby walkers we had to get one to save our backs and he loves it. We keep it downstairs and there's nowhere that he can trip or fall out of it so we feel confident that he's quite safe. He has full scope to chase the dog from one side of the living room to the other with a mischievous glint in his eye, and he lets us know he wants to go out by heading straight for the door. We were worried a few weeks ago that he wasn't crawling so we kept him out of the walker for a week. It didn't make any difference; he was just very cranky!

In the last week or so he's finally started showing signs that he might be crawling soon, and he is much more mobile. He's pulling himself up on furniture, and as soon as he's standing he gets a great big grin on his face, as if he's so very proud of himself. His latest manoeuvre is to transition from sitting to all fours by leaning forward (usually to grab something he's not supposed to) quickly followed by collapsing onto his belly. It's painful, but wickedly amusing, to watch him get so close to a crawl only to fail at the last hurdle. We're starting to realise how unsafe our house actually is as J lunges for cords and pulls things off shelves. We made an emergency purchase of stair gates, door closers, cord shorteners and corner cushions on Kiddicare.com this week so hopefully this time next week the place will be a little more baby-proof.

Our biggest worry, safety-wise, was the cot and we lowered it as soon as we realised J could use the bars to pull himself to standing. We've been a bit lazy to this point and have not been in the habit of raising the side gate. So late last night when we heard a loud crash coming from J's room we both instantly thought he'd fallen out of the cot and ran in there quicker than you can say "slack parents!" J was safely curled up asleep; all he'd done was kick the side of the cot, but my heart was palpitating for about an hour afterwards. The irony is, last night was the first night this week that J was feeling better and slept well...

I know as he gets older and able to get into more mischief we'll have to think of new ways to keep the house safe, but for now we're going to start by raising the side of the bed, every single night.

Thanks again for all the support this week, especially to the friends who offered to take my calls in the middle of the night; it's very much appreciated. We all got sick in the end and we're desperately hoping that we can harden up and avoid catching every little bug J brings home.  See you next week x