My Dog is a Tween
We all go through defiant phases in our lives – the terrible twos, the child/adolescent tween years, the roll-your-eyes-at-everything teen stage, and then adulthood, the stage with more categories I can name in one blog post.
This week, I’ve realized that dogs go through many of these same phases and I’ve determined that my dog is officially a tween.
I’ve spent the last few weeks reading through a few books about tweens (Talking to Tweens and The Tween Years), primarily for an article I’m writing but also because I have an 11-year old daughter. What has surprised me the most is that there are some very real behavioral similarities between my 11-year old daughter and my two-year old dog. Continue reading
Fighting Like Cats and Dogs
I never fully understood the phrase “they fight like cats and dogs.” As a child, we didn’t have many pets. My younger sister had a bird or two, but no cats or dogs. I couldn’t fathom why people assumed that these two types of animals would not get along. From what I knew, most cats were sassy, sly quiet pets while most dogs were all bark and no action – a sensitive, yet lazy breed. Sounds like a perfect match, right?
What I’ve realized as a parent, though, is that we all go through a “cat” and a “dog” phase. Continue reading
Fat Dog in a Little Coat

Before
As humans, our obsession with weight haunts us every minute of the day. Many of us weigh ourselves incessantly, critique every inch of our bodies and constantly evaluate how “fat” we are in the mirror.
We place pictures of skinnier versions of ourselves on the fridge, we buy fat free dressing that tastes like water and low calorie rice cakes that resemble cardboard, and we compare ourselves to other humans, wishing we could just shed 5-10 pounds.
In the meantime, dogs lounge around, lazily contemplating the next meal or planning their next nap on the forbidden couch. My dog is no exception. She snores the loudest in our house, seems put-out when I make her go outside to run and tears apart the trash searching for food just as I rearrange the pantry each night looking for a snack. Continue reading