Spoiled

Not the milk.
Not the children. (Though that might be debatable, but not today.)

It's the dog.

My parents sometimes watch the kids and the dog when my husband and I travel. There is no dispute that it's an bonafide Law of Grandparenting that they may spoil the children - and, by extension - the dog when the parents are away. That's a fair tradeoff, right? We get to escape for a few days and the kids get treats and special favors while the grandparents are granted full immunity.

Then we - the parents - come home, the grandparents hand the kids and dog over to us, and life goes back to normal. For all of us, that is, except Bentley.

He loves his Grammie and Papa. And he loves their special dog food (that's waaaay better than what he gets at home). And he loves that they'll stop whatever they're doing to pet and talk baby-talk to him. Why wouldn't he expect such royal treatment at home?

So we're going through a bit of a whiny stage with the dog right now. A little bit of retraining is needed.

Never fear: We should have our favorite canine cutie retrained and unspoiled just in time for the next hand-off...