Monkey See, Doggie Do?

Ewww, I agree. That's a terrible title. But this is a two topic post that called for something a little edgy... uh unusual... um gross? Let's move on.

Seth is at that funny "monkey see, monkey do" stage where he mimics whatever those around him are doing. He especially loves to copy Faith. Here, Faith decided to lay in the grass during a baseball game, so Seth did too. I missed getting a shot of them both with their hands behind their heads, elbows out.



It's hard to remember all the funny times that we have seen Seth do something out of character, only to quickly realize that he is simply doing what another family member just did. If I could remember better, I would list some examples HERE.

And now that we have the dog... (Yes, we got a dog! More on that in a bit.)... Seth pants and shakes too. In fact, the Sunday before we got our own dog, Seth met a seeing-eye dog at the end of church and then exited the building on all fours, tongue hanging out, tail wagging... wait, no tail.

I have never been a fan of dogs. Growing up, my cat Muffin and I stayed to ourselves while the rest of the family adored our pet dog Sparky. Until recently, the most contact I generally have with dogs is a couple of reluctant, courtesy pats/ pushes when visiting a neighbor or friend with an overly friendly pooch.

But after 12 years of adamantly avoiding slobber and canine hair, I went soft-- unset jello soft. I could no longer deny my husband and children the opportunity to bond with man's best friend. Old Yeller, Lassie, Benji, Underdog... the potential for adventure and love is without end.

So, on my beloved's 39th birthday the kids and I gave him dog toys. Since his birthday was in the middle of our big out of town vacation, the choosing of a four legged companion had to wait a couple of weeks. We planned to go to the local shelter and see what was up for adoption, but the hours it was open were so few and of course they didn't coordinate well with Dave's work schedule, so we hopped online to the local yard sale site and found this description...

2 year old male Boston Bulldog. His name is Dozer. Fully potty trained, indoor dog, kid friendly. The dog sits, lays, and will even dance if you have a treat. He is fully trained for his cage or he can sleep in the bed at night. Boston Bulldog is a hybrid breed. I have papers from a breeder with birth certificate. Dog is micro chipped. Asking for a good home and maybe a little re-homing fee. Moving into an apartment need a good home for Dozer. Please email me for pics.

He sounded perfect for us as we wanted a medium sized, short hair, indoor dog that was beyond the potty training stage (we have that in our near future already.) So the owner sent us some pictures and while he wasn't the most photogenic dog (are any bulldogs photogenic?) we thought we should meet Dozer and check out his personality. We met a couple days later and Dozer seemed both playful and well mannered. He passed the Dave test and the Seth test and even I thought he was sort of sweet and borderline cute.

So now we have this guy in our family...


I asked the original owner why he named him "Dozer." I thought perhaps the dog was a bit lethargic and napped a lot. But, I was wrong. Dozer is short for Bulldozer cause he's a strong dog that can push through anything. We can't argue with that. Dozer outweighs Seth by about 5 lbs and so we are working on teaching him to be a little less bulldozer-like when around the little guy. And we are still working on a relationship of tolerance between Dozer and Tiger, our four year old cat.

Anyhow, Dozer is loved. And Seth is loved. But Seth's new habit of dancing on the table after every meal is not one that he learned from Dozer or any other family member for that matter.