My son is 2 1/4 and it is sometimes so amazing to watch how fast they grow up, change, and learn before your eyes. It is often a daily transition that catches you by surprise....and gives you the giggles!
This morning I asked him to go let the dogs (my 2 two mini schnauzers) out of their room where they sleep for the night in their crates. (In our previous homes they slept in their crates beside the bed, but the house we own now is an older home and the master bedroom is swallowed up by our king size bed, so our dressers and dogs have taken up residence in the spare room across the hall!) He just mastered door opening yesterday....so yes in some ways our little genius is so far behind the game when my friends' children mastered that skill long before the age of 2! Once they are freed from prison I let them out to pee. It's an old neighborhood as I mentioned so with all the BIG trees there are A LOT of birds and squirrels! To a schnauzer that still has some genetic memory of why the Germans created the breed; to rid their barns and homes of rats and rodents; it's ALL OUT WAR OUT THERE!!!
Let me be clear; this is only the case to those schnauzers that have retained that genetic memory. Jinx, my 4 year old tiny little princess, has no clue whatsoever that other animals share her backyard! She was a runt and more than slightly oxygen deprived as a puppy in her litter so she simply runs out, pees, eats some snow and returns indoors. I think a 400-strong army of squirrels could be lined up along the railing of our massive deck and she would simply trot past, perhaps singing "Zippity Do Da" in her head, do her business, and come straight back.
Misfit, my 8.5 year old warrior, on the other hand wages battle against these invaders on a daily basis. The magpies sit in the overhanging tree from our neighbors yard and verbally taunt her whenever she's outside. The squirrels dance along the overhead power lines and chatter away at her, which just works her up into a frenzy! She will jump at them, never learning that they will always remain out of reach; I think she must picture herself the size of a ferocious Rottweiler, a fact easily understood when dogs cannot recognize themselves in a mirror and grasp their true identity! So in lacking the ability to catch them and savagely tear them to bits, as she has done to numerous teddy bears, she barks! INCESSANT, loud, vicious-sounding, non-stop barking.
I am not a pet owner that allows my dogs to disrupt the whole neighborhood with endless barking; even though I think 90% of the houses along my street have a dog; so I am constantly out there reprimanding her!
This morning I was replaced by my 2 year old who went over, opened the patio door, stuck his head out and shouted "Puppy NO BARKING!" The giggle was already their on my lips, but when I turned to look the whole experience was sealed with his little finger wagging in the air at her! It was full laughter by that point!
Would you believe that she actually listened to him! :)
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Cute! Very cute! Thank you for sharing your morning. Kids are funny and will pick up anything we say. We don't think they are really listening or paying attention to us. And then we hear them say something like this and we are amazed. My kids always amaze me with what comes out of their mouths. :)
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