Tonight I had a dog-parenting fail

Tonight I failed my princess poodle, Mayiah. Royally. But before you read on, let me start with this disclaimer: she was not harmed — but she was temporarily upset with me.

Let me start at the beginning.

Mayiah has always been the Queen Bee in the house — she’s 4 pounds of attitude and even my Lab, Jade, would bow to her when she was alive. (RIP Jade). When Chewie, the shih tzu, came along, the first thing Mayiah did was growl at him. The second thing she did was steal Chewie’s first toy, which we nicknamed her “baby.” This toy, an ugly lime green squeaky toy is seriously bigger than Mayiah’s head. But she lugged that thing around for years. She slept with it. Carried it around and would cry when she couldn’t find it.

This toy has been repaired more times than I can count — numerous holes had to be sewed up and it’s missing its eyes and bow it used to have.

The toy got old and started to shed fuzz. When Mayiah got older she began to lick the toy, getting the fuzz in her throat, which made her choke a lot. So, we made the tough decision to take the toy away from her — hiding it in a file cabinet. She looked for it for a few days, but eventually forgot about it.

Until tonight.

It had been months and months since she had the toy so I decided to grant her a trial run with her toy. I gave the toy to her and she was overjoyed. She carried it around, threw it off the couch a few times and then carried it around some more. Then … she started licking it again. Pretty soon she was choking again on the fuzz.

FAIL.

So, needless to say the toy is back in the filing cabinet. I sadly watched Mayiah look around the room for it — she even looked on the end table for it. Then she looked some more. Then she cuddled with me, rolled over her back as if to say “if I’m cute, I know you’ll give it back to me.”

FAIL. Dog parenting fail.

I’m happy to report she’s sleeping now and seems to have no lasting ill effect as a result of my dog parenting fail. I do believe she’s going to make a full emotional recovery.