Our golden retriever used to talk to us, but not to the extent yours did. Yours literally was trying to communicate back! Ours would vocalize some interesting low-pitched noises when he wanted attention or when he was “hugging” your leg (kind of leaning against it, getting petted). But that was about it.

Our dogs try to talk to us also. Does anyone else’s do that. Mom can put me on speaker phone, and if I talk to them, they would try and “talk” back to me. It is comforting when I can’t be home frequently.

CA – You know I totally endorse bribery as a parental tool.

yeah this is why I have three kids and no pets. You should have seen what happened yesterday when I took them all to the store. The fighting got so bad that I bought these strawberry milkshakes, and then drank them right in front of the kids…tortured them for a while…as they begged and pleaded for the milkshake….then when they couldn’t take it another second, I made them swear not to fight in the next store. They were like WE PROMISE WE PROMISE PLEASE CAN WE HAVE A MILKSHAKE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE NO WE WON’T FIGHT WE PROMISE PLEASE PLEASE

They sucked those down in record time. I’m losing all of my parental scruples.

I thought having the dog was extremely useful in teaching DD about being gentle and kind and taking care of others and responsibility. Those are sometime hard lessons to learn for as egocentric as toddlers are.

Now that I think about it, you have a milk-drinking doggie? Wow – and I thought my avocado-loving pooch was unique. My parents don’t give them veggies anymore b/c they can be bad for dogs, but this one dog they have is like a veggie vacuum.

Our pets are NOT allowed on the counters! YUCK! We do not touch them while cooking either, in fact, we usually chase them out of the room. We do not allow our pets to lick us on the face either…they get fussed at if they do it, which is seldom. We also always wash our hands every single time before touching any food or drink simply because we have pets.

I do have a funny story for you, although our dog got in trouble for it. Mom was preparing herself a bedtime snack. She’d taken her glass of milk to the living room and set it on the end table. Mom did not pay attention that the smarter Pom was on the couch. When she came back, her glass of milk was nearly empty. Not a drop had been spilled, and there was no evidence of the glass being cracked. Our other Pom can’t jump up onto the couch on his own. He has arthritis due to Lyme Disease he contracted early on, so there was only one suspect. She was VERY sneaky about it too. Mom had to get a new glass of milk…in a new glass because of that LOL.

Unless of course, you are a FREAK.

muhahahaa.