Confessions of a Failed Doggy Momma

Disclaimer: This note is not about teaching but in a way it is. Enjoy

Confessions of a Failed Doggy Momma

Okay, dog lovers, let me just say up front that I have nothing against dogs. I just have never wanted one and, now that I have one, find that I am not cut out to care for one. However, more than that, I do NOT like to fail so I’m doing my best. I do love this little fur ball but he is more than I can handle! This all goes back to my childhood, I’m sure.

I never had a dog of my own. My mother had had some dogs growing up but they were hit by cars and she was fairly traumatized herself. We had dogs living on either side of us. Spartan was a mutt of some sort and Pug was, well, a pug. Both dogs ran free and chased me and my friends through my yard many times.  More than once they chased us up one of the two climbable trees in the yard. They were constantly barking and snapping. My poor grandmother, who was always sweet and mild- mannered, was bitten by each dog at least once. Her only crime was getting out of her car and showing her fear of the dogs. Needless to say, my experience growing up was not the best when it came to dogs. My only other close encounter with a dog came when I was pregnant with my second child. I sat down at the breakfast table at my in-laws’ house in my robe and slippers and crossed my legs. I hadn’t noticed the dog under the table and apparently my foot touched her and startled her so she turned and bit me. Despite the fact that I had to go get a tetanus shot, everyone present wanted to know what I had done to cause the dog to bite me. So, I never had become a big fan of dogs.

My daughter, on the other hand, has wanted a dog for as long as I can remember. I think she has asked for one every birthday since she was five. Her dad always promised he would get her one when he could be home more and we could fence in the yard. I continued to find reasons why we didn’t need one. First and foremost, was that I felt that after the children were potty trained, I had no intention of picking up the poop of anything I didn’t give birth to. I also knew who would be saddled with the majority of the doggy care and that just did not appeal to me.

It happens that my daughter’s birthday falls on Christmas day due to my poor calculating skills. I have always felt some small measure of guilt over this (although I don’t think she has ever been short-changed in the gift department). But this year was her 21^st birthday and I really did want to give her the gift she wanted most. So… I Caved!

From the start my husband and my daughter insisted that we needed a manly dog, thus ruling out anything with poo or doodle in its name. I, on the other hand, imagined a quiet, non-shedding, low maintenance lap dog. FYI, Dooley is not that! He is a most adorable bundle of energetic fur and has the most beautiful blue eyes. What’s not to love? And he does love to lick my face. Actually, I’ve kind of learned to enjoy the doggy kisses.

 His barking, chewing, mania and messing were much more tolerable when there were other people living here with me. But now both kids are back at college and my husband is working out of town long term. So it’s just me and Dooley. It has been 5 weeks since I could sit and read or sit and knit or just sit. If he doesn’t want to play, he is asleep at my feet but if I move at all, he wakes up and wants to play.

He barks at the vacuum, the broom, a bag of garbage by the door, my bag for school or anything else that he just noticed. He barks at the rocker that has been in the same place since he came to live with us. It seems that he only just now realized that it moves, especially if he touches it. He can bark at it for a solid hour. He barks at anyone new he sees, even he sees them every day. He just noticed the birds, chipmunks and insects outside and now he stands at the window and barks at them. He barks!

He recently decided that he prefers to use the bathroom inside rather than outside. I had thought that was settled by the time he had been here a few weeks. He also decided that sleeping through the night does not appeal to him.

AND HE CHEWS things. He chews all tissues and paper towels left in his range, he chews his beds (3 so far), the baseboards, leashes (he has chewed through 5 of those while he is wearing them), socks, garbage, and, mostly recently, my brand new Lace Toms Shoe! That sent me over the edge.

If I’m not hyper-vigilant, he runs away. And I’m not talking about leaving the door open. Remember when I said he chewed through leashes. Yeah, while I’m standing right there holding the other end. I’m sure the neighbors get a kick out of watching me chase him through their yards. Me…I don’t enjoy it much.

I try to be a good doggie momma but I tend to try to buy his good behavior with treats. Apparently that is not a good dog training plan.  But that’s not too far removed from my parenting style, I’ve been told.  I clean the poop and play Dooley ball in the yard for at least 30 minutes any day that it isn’t raining, make sure he has food and water, bathe him, give him his heart worm medication and flea treatments and I cuddle him and talk nice most of the time.

Oh, let me explain Dooley ball to you. It is a game involving 2 old soccer balls and a Frisbee. It is part dodge ball, part keep away, and part chase. I throw the Frisbee or kick the ball and he chases them or grabs them in his mouth and will not give them back until I wrestle them away from him. If he has the Frisbee in his mouth, he herds the balls together so I can’t get any of them but if I dare go inside, he drops them all and sits just inside the door whimpering until I come back.

I’m just stressed. I never imagined that I would be the 24/7 dog person and hopefully soon I will have him fully trained for his real mommy!  Oops there I go spoiling her again! I love him, I really do! This week, we are going to see what happens when he is neutered. Rumor has it that this may calm him down. I’m not holding my breath. After that, it’s training or maybe even doggy boot camp. That costs $800, but as I said, I Do Not like to fail! I WILL conquer this little bugger! But my next dog will definitely be a sissy lap-dog!

Thinking "Inside" the Box

 

 

     Last week, we read some new books in Preschool and tried a few new activities. One day we read the book Press Here by Herve Tullet and did a number of activities with just a few packs of Dollar Tree dot stickers. You can find all of the activities on my blog post about the book from last year. We also read the book The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds about a child who learns to have confidence in her abilities to draw if she just starts. Using some white dots, we asked the children to draw a picture starting with the dot. We got some beautiful colorful pictures that the children were really proud of. My favorite of the new books by far, however, was Not A Box by Antoinette Portis. This is a simply drawn book about a cardboard box that is NOT box.

 

 I provided 10 cardboard boxes of various sizes. The only rules were that the largest box needed to be shared with anyone who wanted to get inside of it. After all, it was a perfect place for hide and seek. Also they couldn't dump all the other classroom toys into the boxes. Otherwise, they could use their imaginations and whatever supplies we had on hand in the classroom to make them into whatever they wanted.

 

They used crayons, markers, magazines and tape (lots of tape). This kept the entire group quiet for a full 15 minutes as they turned the boxes into new creations. What did they make?

It's a place to hide in or....

a place to hide under!

It's a hat!

It's a race car!

It's a baby bath!

They are bumper cars! Um...okay.

It's a lego holder. Clearly someone did not hear the rules!

We offered the children the opportunity to draw pictures like the ones in the book but only a couple of the girls took us up on the offer.

 

It's a girl using a stack of boxes to climb up the mountain! Why, yes, it is!

 

Each child was allowed to take home a box if they wanted to. Everyone wanted to and no one really cared which box they took. As they got into their cars after school with A BOX most parents said something along the lines of  "Oh, I see you have a box!" and the answer was "No, it's a ____________." One wise parent asked "What did you make?" The answer, "It's a Not A Box!" Of course!



 

 

 

 

One Person's Trash...

Happy New Year! It has been quite a while since I posted. My last few attempts ended in disaster with my old laptop crashing twice and considerable time in between for repairs and finally replacement. I'm back for good now, I hope!

We have all heard the saying "One man's trash is another man's treasure!" When you are a preschool teacher, that saying is particularly true. I will take fabric scraps, plastic containers, previously used bulletin board decorations, or just about anything else you can imagine. Last week, in my director's office, I found several boxes of empty cardboard examination table paper rolls and a bag of rubber balls that someone probably ordered from Oriental Trading once and found that they didn't need. As it turned out, I had found a gold mine, a real treasure, an entire rainy week's worth of entertainment for a room full of busy boys and girls.

I brought in one box of the cardboard rolls and about a dozen rubber balls. I placed them in the center of the rug to see what they would do with them. Immediately, they started to try to build ball runs and see if they could get the balls to go through several tubes laid end to end. If they continued to quickly roll balls in, some would eventually be pushed out the other end. They were sort of losing interest by that time, so I suggested that they see what would happen if they used some blocks. Voila! Someone discovered that by raising the first tube up on a stack of blocks, the balls would roll faster and harder through the tubes. Sometimes the tubes would roll off the blocks or out of line. Someone else found that  you could make trays or railings for the tubes with more blocks. By then, they were hooked! For the entire week, we built new and different tracks and played with them nonstop. For this week, at least, the other toys were just props and filler to make the ball runs more interesting.

By the end of the week, some children got even more creative with the tubes or tired of building the runs. A few tried using them as weapons, but when threatened with losing the tubes entirely, found more "educational" ways of using them. One little boy put several balls into a tube, using sort of like a rainstick. A few others turned some of the tubes into instruments such as horns and drums and made some music for their classmates to dance to.  

As of Friday, they had not yet tired of these new "toys" so I will bring them out again this week and see what happens. When the newness wears off, I'll have to decide whether to find a place to store them until a later date or dispose of them altogether. My teacher/hoarder mentality thinks that would be a shame. For now, we will just enjoy this treasure.