The Pyramid of Grossness

Everyone knows that having children and having pets requires a certain level of un-squeamishness. You have to change diapers, scoop kitty litter, pick up dog poop, deal with vomit, wash bums, etc, etc. You have to be an adult and just 'deal' with the disgusting bodily functions of people other than yourself, and really, it's not SO bad. You just get used to it, right?

But Duke... ah, Duke. He brings grossness to a whole other level. And each time I think he's maxed out his grossness, he manages to one-up himself yet again!

So Duke has a little problem with separation anxiety. He doesn't like being left alone, and he most certainly does not like being left alone in the crate. He poops. And then steps in it, rolls around in it, flings it out of the cage... makes a big ol' giant mess that requires much cleaning, swearing, and a bath for the puppy. So we abandoned crate training and decided to use baby gates to keep him confined to only part of the house.

Which worked great until he HOPPED the gate and pooped in all the bedrooms upstairs. Lovely.

So pooping. Fine. He's basically paper-trained, so now we close all the bedroom doors and as his anxiety lessens as he gets older, he's either not pooping, or poops on the paper. Awesome.

Except... except for the fact that sometimes he EATS his poop. It's a nervous, puppy reaction, and it sucks. No one wants a shit-eater to kiss their human-babies, right?

But fine... eating poop is a fairly common thing among dogs, particularly puppies, and we are hoping he grows out of it as he gets older and less anxious and the separation anxiety wanes. We are working on a number of strategies, both behavioural and physiological to get him to stop.

BUT... to top the grossness pyramid... not only does he EAT the poop, he then THROWS UP the poop. Because like, poop doesn't agree with his stomach I guess? Yes, I told you that parenthood is gross!

But wait. There's more. How can there be more you ask? Well. How about you take a recently neutered dog who is forced to wear a cone for a week (and incidentally can't be bathed!), add in a poo-eating incident, and then a poo-vomiting incident... add that altogether and you have poo-vomit running down his neck, pooling in his cone around his face, dribbling out on his dogbed... and a tired mom who breaks down into tears and forces her husband to come home from work to help clean up.

I told you. Having children, whether furry or not, is just plain gross. It's a damn good thing he's cute.

THREE Babies

I knew we were having a second baby. While she was somewhat of a surprise to us, we had 9 months to prepare for her arrival, and we always knew that eventually we'd have two children anyway. They say going from 1-2 children is far easier than the initial shock of adding that first child to your family - and so far, I think that's true. There is less downtime for sure, since any alone time requires one parent to be in charge of two little lives. There is more clutter, more expense, less sleep. But overall, adding our second baby was fairly uneventful, and clearly, much welcomed.

Adding a third baby? Now THAT is stressful. After the unexpected loss of our wonderful French Bulldog Bruiser, at only 4 years of age, in March of 2010, we immediately adopted an older, wiser Frenchie, Peanut. We lost her this June - when our newborn was only 6 weeks old.

So to add to the craziness of having a two and a half year old toddler, AND a newborn - we brought home a new puppy. A full-of-energy, un-housebroken, slightly anxious, loveable and clumsy PUPPY. What were we thinking?!?!

If you've seen the movie Marley and Me, then you know what I mean, when I say that this dog, this ball of love and energy, is THE WORST DOG IN THE WORLD.

This blog will highlight some of our adventures in raising our three babies - two human, one not - and serve as a warning to any who attempt to follow in our footsteps.