Speaking the word of dog

A new reality has descended upon the animal kingdom, which is that it has all gone canine. At least that's how Henry would have it.

See, "dog" was one of his earliest words. And he can point out a dog like nobody's business. If we drive past some man out walking his best friend, you can count on excited shouts of "dog!" from the backseat. If we arrive home only to hear Elliott barking his fool head off from inside, Henry's quick to put a name to the racket's source.

But dog is not limited to just actual dogs. When we look at pictures of animals, they're all dogs. The entire cast of the Farmer Says See And Say is dog, be they bird, amphibian, small woodland animal, or mud dweller. When we read Dr. Seuss, every fuzzy character is a dog. Reading The Foot Book goes something like this:

Holmes: His feet, her feet. Fuzzy fur feet

Henry: (pointing to large fuzzy beast thing) Dog.

Holmes: Small feet, big feet, here come pig feet.

Henry: (pointing to pig) Dog.

Holmes: That's a pig.

Henry (emphatically) Dog.

Holmes: Pig.

Henry: (slower, patiently, as if talking to a child) Dog.

And that's the thing that cracks me up, the little guy is so very patient with me when explaining what these things are (dogs, of course). One day he'll know the names of all these things and more, and even plenty of stuff his old man never quite got around to learning about. But right now, it's all dog, it's all good, and it's hilarious.