Gorgeous daughter (3.3) constantly pretending to be a dog. Normal and funny or plain odd (but still a bit funny)?

[claudiaschiffer]

Have got a lovely dd who constantly pretends to be "Stevie the dog". We have a beagle who is called Steve and dd (aged 3.3) has pretty much spent the last few months pretending to be the dog. Yesterday I was at the doctors and dd spent most of her time there barking at the doc, the receptionist, other patients . She asks to drink from the dogs bowl and wants to walk around on the lead. I made her a tail to wear but now wonder if i'm just encouraging her increasingly nutty behaviour.

It is charming most of the time and very funny but I am unsure whether to play along with it or quietly ignore it/play it down.

Anyone else with children who have gone through this phase?

Am worried that people will start to think we just keep her in a kennel and throw her a bone now and again .

Thik yourselves lucky - my dd was, among other things, a basket of washing that I had to peg on the line and a roll of wallpaper that I had to hang on the wall. And a volcano and a geyser. And a lemur. We were all also once a family of pencils. I would have been GRATEFUL for a dog - it would have been nice to take for walks.

She has just informed me that she is poorly and needs to go "to the doggy vet".

Seeker very funny

sorry not to offer advice but this thread has really cheered me up!!

Am laughing out loud and its not even 10am

DS2 has just turned 7 and still is regularly inhabited by other animals. Just recently he's been Timothy Frisby (a little mouse from Mrs Frisby and the Rats of Nimh, which he'd just read), but he is commonly also a golden labrador puppy, an Emperor penguin chick, a Tertwig (some kind of Pokemon), a robin fledgling and others too numerous to mention. Many of them have quite elaborately imagined lives (eg the golden labrador worships a god called Tom the Puppy who lives in the Great Kennel in the Sky, and he learns basic guard and guide dog skills at puppy school.)

I'm not worried about it, as he's a perfectly sociable little boy with friends and is doing well at school. Of course he doesn't tell any of his friends about these parallel lives ("Not in public, Mum!" is his frequent refrain.)

Yep, dogs here too.

'Tis easiest way of controlling my highly active 4 yr old, he wears a lead (reins). He is Donnie the puppy, most days when he isn't wearing a tutu and being 'I a fairy'.

(That does get us some off looks in the supermarket.)

ds used to be a dolpin or a crocodile or a dinosaur. He was the baby animal and I had to be the Mummy. Fortunately this was mainly indoors.

I remember one MNer posting that her ds was a cyberman, or a dalek. Which seemed MUCH more wearing!

Normal.

DS#2 was a dog or a gorilla or just about any animal you care to mention until he started school. Still reverts to beasthood from time to time. Never known anyone who can get about so fast on all fours.

In fact on one occasion GPs took DS out for the day as to a garden centre and he was bounding around being a dog. And he cocked his leg on a tasteful display of garden furniture. Thankfully the place was full of fond GPs who all said 'ahhh' and laughed

my ds (4 yo) is a dog whose owner is my dd (6 y o). They communicate in dog-talk. dd is a very nice owner and gives her dog lots of cuddles.

I am just a mean old mummy who makes them get dressed for school and spoils all the fun!

Oh and in the swimming pool she was "killer mermaid" Glittery and girly, but able to kill with one flick of her tail. And she didn't hold back - I had the bruises to prove it!