Baby, Puppy and Table Scraps

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When I was pregnant with our first child we lived in an upstairs apartment in an old house in a small town in western Kansas. My husband was in his first year of teaching and we were broke and happy. We decided that a house was not a home without a dog. Someone was giving away free puppies so we adopted one. When it came to naming him, my husband suggested ARI – short for Aristotle because Jackie Kennedy had just married Aristotle Onassis. I didn’t like that name but my Greek husband won that tiff when he said it’s the name of the dog or the baby. I had about 6 months with the dog before the baby arrived and we liked him. He was well trained and a gentle puppy. I had a girl so the name Aristotle wouldn't fit her but by then I liked the name for the dog. We trained him to stay out of the kitchen. It was off limits so he would lie in the doorway with his nose touching the threshold. Our baby was fussy. She cried a lot with colic and the dog would cry with her. it was hard for me to keep a straight face when the dog and the baby cried together. When we had dinner we would put the baby in her carrier and set her on the floor by our feet. A colicky baby spits up a lot. The first time she did it while at our feet at the table, I reached down to wipe her face. The dog came thundering into the kitchen and caught us off guard. We were not happy with Ari until we realized he thought she was getting his table scraps. We still laugh about that today. Do you feed your dog table scraps? Does he cry when you cry? It certainly was fun to watch the baby and dog grow up together.