Dogs and babies

My son has learned to say dog. He cannot say yes, or no, or please, or thank you. He can say dog. My wife and I have never owned dogs, but my child has somehow learned how to call them by name. Many of you might suggest that my child can do this because dog is a monosyllabic word, or because it sounds like dada. These are reasonable explanations, but they are wrong.
My son is attempting to identify his favorite things in the entire world. He knows his mother, his father, his bottle, and dogs. He had learned to identify each of them, and now he’s learned to say dog. He laughs when he sees them in his books, and he smiles when he sees them walk toward him on the sidewalk. He tries to pet all of the dogs he meets.
This past weekend, we were staying with grandparents, and Oliver got to spend some time with one of his favorite dogs. Unfortunately, the dog does not share the same feelings. Oliver chased fury little Reggie around all weekend, and even attempted to free him from his crate on one occasion.
We had to draw the line when we noticed that Oliver was trying to eat Reggie’s dog food.  He got pretty close to eating it on occasion but we managed to save the food. After all, the dog would have never forgiven Ollie, and I’m hoping they can eventually be friends.