A boy's best friend

We were at a birthday party yesterday. The party stood out for 2 things among others.

1. A two-tier birthday cake that looked divine and oh-so-pretty.

2. The fact that my son has a great love for dogs.

I shall talk about the latter.

Both Packrat and I think it's extremely important that our children love and respect animals. Many a child round my parents' block has been terrorised by me for being mean to cats. I recall chasing this one kid on a bicycle down, standing in his way and staring into his terror-filled eyes and demanding to know if he liked the fact that I had chased him down. Staring into the eyes that beheld his fate, the poor boy shook his head. So I lectured him very severely about empathy and how, if he didn't like it, why the hell did he subject the poor cat who didn't do anything to him, to it? When I asked if he was going to do it again after I warned him that I was going to be watching him, he tearfully cycled off with his head down. To make sure he wasn't going to take it out on any cat, I followed him which caused him to skedaddle even faster. Of course, I had no way of knowing if he ever did it to another cat again, but that's how seriously I take respecting animals.

Both kids, as with most kids were fascinated with animals of all sorts. The only problem was when the huge German Shepherd a few doors up leapt at the fence and barked at them out of nowhere. That sent Jordan into petrified tears and Evan to follow suit. It was worrying for us because the fear of dogs over-generalised into fear of all animals. Cats, dogs, hamsters were all "gou" (dog in Chinese) and the identification of that was always followed by the thumping of the chest to show fear.

Thankfully they're getting over that. Evan more so than Baby J. Baby J will go stroke and pet the dog if her brother is doing it and will only pet the non-confrontational bits of the dog like the bum or its trunk. Not the fact and I think she would lose it if the dog tried to lick her. Evan, on the other hand, is all over the dog. Letting it slobber all over his face, petting it, standing in the way of its tail so that the metronome tail will slap him across the body and face.



















We're thrilled at his guileless love for dogs but we feel that we have to keep a close eye out because dogs were not created equal in terms of manner and the last thing I want is for some dog to take a flying leap at Evan and take a chunk of him just for laughs.

Of course, we're being hopelessly evil and teaching him to say "Ah Gong". "Please". "Buy". "Me". "Dog". Which he can and bring chuckles from all around.




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