Our new dog has terrible grammar. She’s absolutely fabulous in just about every other way. She’s loyal, loving, affectionate, playful, gentle, well trained…
But she does not understand the proper usage of the words “lie” and “lay.”
If you tell Layla (how ironically named!) to lie down, she stares at you blankly. Tell her to lay down and she lies right down.
Ahem.
Only I would actually be bothered enough to correct my dog’s grammar!
I tell her that you lay eggs and you lie down, but she just flat out doesn’t care.
Good thing she’s so good at algebra. 😉
Want to help the kids know when to say lie, lay, laid and lain? Grammar Monster has an easy page on it. Grammar Tips has a slightly more sophisticated version (complete with explanations of transitive and intransitive verbs) and this reminder:
Magic and Mayhem 
LOL…She is SO adorable, Alicia! My kids have been begging us parents for a dog for a long time, and we have been resisting so far…And blogger friends and FB friends are not helping much by posting all their cute dog and pup pictures..:))
-Subadra
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Subadra, our kids asked us for years too! We have such a chaotic life (and a small house for 7 people already!) that we resisted for a long time. I started to think that we really needed a family dog though. They bring so much love and joy to a family and they’re also good for daily exercise! 😉 We have lots of older kids who are old enough to take the responsibility for her and who could use the kind of companionship a dog brings (always elated to see you, faithful to the end, happy to play with you, thinks you’re fabulous… LOL).
I stalked the Petfinders site for a few months looking for the perfect dog (you type in your zip and your search criteria like cat or dog, and you see pages of results from shelters near you), and then I sent a list of prospects to Daryl with pictures and descriptions. Both of us felt that Layla was it as soon as we saw her, even though Daryl still thought I was crazy to be getting a dog. 🙂
I also made sure to look only at adult dogs. That way, someone else has already done the work of training them, they are not so full of manic energy, and they also really need a home (everybody tends to want the puppies). And I researched the breeds for each dog on our list to see what potential drawbacks of that breed were (barking was the only common one listed for collies, who are typically known as great dogs for families with kids). Layla was described on Petfinders as very well trained, gentle and good with kids, so we called and asked more questions and then arranged to drive to get her. Only Victoria knew what was going on (and she only found out that day). We told the other kids that we were driving to a shelter in Iowa to volunteer and give a donation (technically sort of true!). When we got there, they brought out Layla and the kids thought they got to love on her and exercise her and immediately started begging to bring her home. I finally smiled and told them that was the plan. 🙂
She is much bigger than she looks in pictures but she’s just perfect for us and she’s happily adapted amazingly to our chaos. 🙂
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Alicia,
Thank you for sharing the story! It sounds magical :-). And I wish there was a ‘like’ button at the end of the posts, LOL…
Maybe we will get a dog when return to the States…I totally get what you are saying abt having a family dog…
She is looking SOOOO awesome beautiful!
Subadra
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I love the graphic–it’s certainly a memorable way to tackle those pesky usage errors!
So glad Layla is able to help with algebra. Our dogs are no help at all there, but we love them anyway!
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