A recent story on Good Morning America reaffirmed my belief that there are a lot of similarities between dogs and children.
Besides an inexplicable yearning to always be outside the fenced area (no matter how large the fenced area is), excessive salivation, and occasional biting, the tendency of dogs and small children to impulsively stick their heads in restrictive spaces can now be added to the list of commonalities between the two.
The GMA segment I’m referring to described how a German shepherd got his head stuck in a hole in a wall and had to be extricated by animal rescue personnel in Desert Hot Springs, California.
You may be asking yourself, “Why would a dog put its head through a hole in a wall?”
But if you’re the parent of a small child, you already know the answer.
This was an 8-month-old puppy, which in dog years is roughly equivalent to a human age span ranging from my 21-month-old-son, Tax Credit #4, to my days-away-from-being-a-5-year-old, Perpetual Motion. Smack dab in the middle of that range is their 3-year-old sister, the Hellcat. Throw in 6-year old Slim and it’s clear our household has a lot of experience with children during this developmental phase. Hell, our household is this developmental phase.
We’ve had to pry our kids’ heads out of too many tight places to count: that gap between the bed and the wall, the vertical metal spindles leading up the stairs of the slide, many a sibling’s headlock. The list goes on and on.
And I can utilize volumes of personal anecdotal evidence to prove that 2-to-5-year olds, and most likely 8-month-old puppies, do lots of illogical things based on one simple philosophy: “Just because.”
Why wade knee-deep in the creek in late December when it is 29 degrees outside?
Why pick up a slice of bread from your plate and plop it on top of your head, buttered-side down?
Why wedge yourself into a five-gallon bucket?
Why purposefully veer from your intended path to step on your brother’s Leapster?
Why wipe your nose on your sleeve while you’re holding a tissue?
Why get out of bed at night and model your mom’s undergarments?
Why jam a handful of peas up your left nostril?
Why take your socks and shoes off any time you’re in a vehicle for more than five minutes?
Just because.
As a parent, there’s no point in trying to understand these things. You learn to roll with it. Or you don’t. Either way, little kids and dogs are going to do what they do.
Such as barking at ungodly hours for no apparent reason. Tax Credit #4 decided to do this early one recent morning. Early enough, in fact, that he and I were able to catch a story about a dog getting its head stuck in a hole in a wall.
Why?
Just because.
—Photos Top: greg westfall/Flickr, Bottom: Chase McFadden
Good Tax season relief……thanks for the good read, as always, funny stuff.
We can always count on you for some good comic relief as we are barely clinging to our sanity while trying to raise our humans…and canines. Thanks for the belly laugh.
HI CHASE – ANOTHER SUPER ARTICLE AND CONGRATULATIONS! I LOVE PERPETUAL MOTION’S (THOUGHT I’D BETTER SPELL IT OUT THIS TIME) EXPRESSIONS, THE BUCKET LOOK IS CLOSE TO THE SCARECROW LOOK. I’M TRYING TO GUESS WHO DID WHAT AS FAR AS PEAS IN THE NOSE (YOU?), STEPPING ON THE LEAPSTER, BREAD ON HEAD, AND THE MIX UP OF TISSUE AND SLEEVE. NEVER A DULL MOMENT FOR ALL OF YOU AND HOW FUN TO HEAR ABOUT IT.
LOVE,
MOM
HI, MOM. YES, PEAS IN THE NOSE WAS ME. OLD HABITS ARE HARD TO BREAK.
AS ALWAYS, THANKS FOR THE ALL-CAPS LOVE.
LOVE,
SON
Loved this piece the first time…still love it! The photo of P-Motion is priceless!
Wendy
Thanks, Wendy. Not sure that a parent’s first instinct should be to grab a camera when his child is stuck in a bucket, but he wasn’t going anywhere.
Chase, good to see you, your brood, and your fab writing at another site.
I love the analogy, by the way. It works. Almost too well. My son has also got his head stuck under the bed, between the bed and the floor. I did a nice dead lift to rescue him.
Deadlifting a bed to dislodge your son’s head? That’s gettin’ your mom on.
Thanks, IM.