Toddler leads a dog's life

GRAND CENTRAL E-mail Patty Ryan: Click here

By PATTY RYAN, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published August 30, 2002

MY SISTER answers her cell phone at a Target store somewhere in Houston.

She is in the baby aisle. My nephew is with her.

She searches for what she euphemistically calls a baby harness. I am puzzled until she says it's to keep Nicolas from wandering off.

TWO DECADES of dog ownership kick in.

"A leash?" I suggest.

"A leash," she admits.

That's when it occurs to me: Babies are a little like dogs.

FIRST, for the sake of family harmony, I must state the obvious: A baby is far more precious than a dog. (Cough, cough. Wink, wink.)

Nicolas would not object to this association.

After all, he has chosen his allegiance, not realizing that he comes from a long line of cat lovers. His Grandma Ginny was midwife to Mittens and Minnie and Callie, in the days before Planned Parenthood. His mother? A cat person at heart, though she tolerates the stuffed dog toys that arrive from Florida, carrying seeds of rebellion.

MY NEPHEW has uttered his first word, in both English and Japanese.

Dog.

Inu.

His only aunt rejoices.

The heavens open with a choir of canine cherubim and seraphim.

It was inevitable.

CONSIDER the similarities between babies and dogs.

Exhibit 1: Both eat dirt.

Exhibit 2. Both love an open toilet bowl.

Exhibit 3: Both sound alarms at 3 a.m., quieted only by milk or Milk Bones.

DOGS sleep anywhere. So do toddlers.

They chew on furniture, teethe on rubber toys and hide small objects in hard-to-find places.

Toddlers swallow macaroni and cheese, then throw the half-empty dish on the ground. Dogs finish the job, then slime the dish.

Dogs make puddles around their water bowls. Toddlers turn over their sippy cups.

Dog, spelled backward, is God.

Baby, spelled backward, is Ybab, which sounds like Yahweh on Novocaine.

THE NEXT time we talk, my sister is home, unpacking the kitchen of a new house, all the while keeping an eye on The Nephew.

"Hang on," she says. "He's heading toward a giant knife."

I ASK if she ever found the baby leash.

She did, she says, sounding slightly disappointed.

"So it didn't work?" I ask.

"Not very well.'

I TAKE a guess, drawing from memories of failed obedience classes.

"He pulls too hard?"

"Yeah. How'd you know?"

I'm feeling once again like the older sister, able to lend advice.

Could I be blamed for going a bit too far?

A choke collar.

That was all I said.

-- Tampa's Kennedy Boulevard was once called Grand Central. Now Grand Central is a weekly City Times column. Writer Patty Ryan can be reached at 226-3382 or pryan@sptimes.com.

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