Doggie Depression

Abby has been obsessed with "the puppy pound" for several months now. What's the puppy pound? It's when Abby takes her stuffed dogs, usually just one or two, and builds a tall block or lego wall around the dog. Then she's "in the puppy pound." Or Abby wraps a pipe cleaner (for art projects) or one of her necklaces around the dog's muzzle. Or she takes one of her longer necklaces and wraps it around the dog's neck and ties it off to her bed post. Sometimes she tucks a small blanket tightly around the dog, trapping it in a cocoon. Poor little doggie. Abby explained that the dog was not bad or lost but just sad and "at home" in the pound. Geeze, how depressing.

When this activity first started, I felt guilty because I was sure that she was remembering QSS. Read about the old post on QSS here. We had taken a stray in and had looked and looked for his owner for more than three weeks. Eventually we had to be serious with ourselves and give QSS over to the pound because we simply couldn't keep him. I was sure that Abby remembered that we had taken QSS to the pound.

Pretty soon though I discovered that Abby was watching Disney's Lady and the Tramp movie at Grammy's house. Oooooooooooo, that explains it. Plus, she was watching Disney's 101 Dalmatians over there too. Ooooooooo, more mistreated doggies. Ah ha, the mystery of the tied up and trapped dogs is solved.

So, I've tried to talk to Abby about it all. Once I stopped talking about dogs in general, and started talking about the characters and story lines of the movies, Abby really opened up with more than "the doggie is sad and at home in the puppy pound." We talked about the different stories and how the dogs feel and why they act the way they do. Abby was confused about some of the actions within Lady and the Tramp, like the "mean rat" scene and the "mean cat" scene. Oy vey.



Well at least I know now that she's not suffering from some residual emotions from QSS and the real pound. I'm off the hook at least.