Dogs and kids - a comparison

Have you ever stopped to consider how much alike dogs and kids are? I have both, and I honestly think that they can be dealt with in the same way sometimes. I have three areas in which my own observations show my hypothesis and its accuracy.

1. You can train a dog to listen to you with praise and punishment.
You can also train a child with the same combination, though the punishments for kids get a little more complex. When my dogs misbehaves, he's told "bad dog" and made to sit still for a few minutes. You could say I took away his moving privileges. When my child misbehaves, they are told that they misbehaved, and given a timeout, which amounts to the same thing. Where children differ here is that you need to do followup to make sure the lesson stuck. (Depending on how you define intelligence, this might indicate that the dogs are smarter, having got it right the first time! ;) Hee!)

2. Kids and dogs eat each others' food.
Seriously! The dogs always want to eat the kids' food, and I caught my kids eating Milk Bone. Is this an opportunity for saving some grocery money or what? I mean, dog food is a lot cheaper than kid food these days! Added bonus in my house: The kids don't want to eat the people food anyway, so everyone gets what they want!

3. All kids and dogs want to do is eat, sleep, and play.
The concept of work, responsibility, and even bathing seems foreign to both dogs and children. I know for a fact that my beagle Bruno hates baths (from experience), and little Nicky the retriever, though yet untested in the tub, is showing early signs of hating the water (against breeding characteristics). And if you want to clear a room fast at my place, just shout out something like "Kids! Bath time!" The very next thought to cross your mind will be something like "Where did everybody go?"

I could probably go on, the above observations are just for starters. I won't get into how they all like to run around without clothing, play with their privates, seek approval of the head of the house, and cost a lot of money. But there is something about them that inspires me to keep them around in both cases.

With my dogs, it's because of their unique and loving personalities, and all their traits, notwithstanding the occasional accident on the floor. Wait a minute, I have to say the same thing about the kids...oh brother, there's a can of worms...

--
The True Samurai has only one judge of honour, and this is himself.
Decisions you make and how these decisions are carried out are a reflection of whom you really are.
You cannot Hide from yourself.
-The Bushido Code, Meiyo (Honour)