On kids and dogs and messy houses

[Adina P]

OMD.  I don't know how anyone with little kids and dogs that chew things up survive childhood!!!  Luckily Rosco doesn't chew things up and Boca is only interested in baby socks (98% of the time put away) and really tiny things and paper and things that seem like they could possibly be paper or could be ingredients for paper.  Like wood.  Like the gnocchi sized wooden nesting doll my 18 month old dropped from the table as he was playing. 

Believe me, I have consciously made an effort to keep Boca's presence and said nesting dolls separated by time and distance.  When nesting dolls are out.  Boca is confined.  But I can't keep up.  So when I realized the two things were present in the same room, I panicked, then thought it couldn't hurt to ask.  So I did. 

"Boca drop it!"

Sure enough...out plops the bottom half of the middle sized nesting doll. 

"Boca, drop it!" has become my knee jerk reaction any time I see my little black doodle enter or exit a room she wasn't in 5 seconds prior.  This is probably the only command she listens to anymore without assistance.

Trying to keep stuff off the floor is an utterly ridiculous and a shoved-in-your-face lesson in futility. 

For all the lovely plans I have of helping/teaching my kids the lesson called "Before we get out new toys, we put already-played-with toys away" it never happens.  Oh it might happen once in a while when I'm not already immersed in cooking, computering, changing a diaper, tending to one crying kid, feeding dogs, tidying up, chasing one kid, etc...but the rest of the time 10 piles of toys appear magically in every walking space of the house. 

What I need is a play room.  A play room with a vortex that sucks toys back in should a child try to exit with any in hand.  Of course that doesn't keep the two legged kids from turning all of the rest of my household belongings into toys and spreading those far and wide. 

I used to be very staunch in the whole "if you have dogs, just keep the house picked up.  have your kids put toys away, close doors, etc."  But seriously.  How?  I have things to do, websites to visit, blogs to write! ;-)

[Adina P]

No.  I think they just understand that nothing belongs to them and the only thing they have had indoors, really, before kids was nylabones or real sterilized bones.  Everything else is either destroyed or ignored so I quit buying dog toys.  They play with us or each other.

[Joanna, Zoe & Bender]

OIC.  They don't try to play with the human toys?  Mine have all the stuffed animals and balls all over our living room and I thought to myself that one day when we have a baby that it would get confusing for them.

[Adina P]

The dogs don't really have toys any more.  At least not indoor toys.  They have some rubber toys outside they almost never touch.  And they have their chuck it balls that they only get when we are playing with them outside.  So pretty much everything indoors is the humans'.

[Joanna, Zoe & Bender]

Oh Adina, I just got a headache imagining all this chaos!  I don't know how you do it!  

Question:  Do kids and dogs share toys?  I would think not right?  If not, how do the dogs distinguish from their own toys and the kids toys?   

[Bonnie and Kona]

Oh Adina! I loved your blog! Bless your heart. My DS and DDIL got their dog before kids (as did everyone in my family, frankly, including me). Now they just had their third and my 6 year old granddaughter told me that her momma said they were not going to get another dog after their 12 year old Golden Retriever dies. I honestly cannot blame her. Whew!

[Star and Goldie]

Haha! I have a playroom but I sure wish it had that vortex too! I'm in the same boat as you. I totally related to this blog!!!

Goldie just does not seem to get the "drop it" command. I'm really hoping that's coming up in our puppy classes over the next few weeks. I'll call out drop it when I see a toy, a slipper, a sock, underwear, bras and even her own poop in her mouth but she just completely ignores me. ::sigh::  I'll go digging for everything I listed but the poop... once that's in her mouth she just better swallow it cuz I'm not going in after that one!