Practicing for Parenthood : OK, so he was wrong. A doggy daddy discovers that having pets is a lot like raising kids.
So it took my wife and me exactly one week after our honeymoon to participate in one of America’s great newlywed rituals. We adopted a couple of puppies--a 10-week-old female shepherd mix named Kasmir and an 8-week-old male German shepherd named Iggy Pup.
It’s like this: A couple gets married. They think they might want children, but it’s a bit too soon. So why not ease into parenthood by practicing on other needy little nippers?
Before becoming a doggy daddy, I was skeptical of all this. Kids and dogs seemed to have very little in common. After all, kids are something you have; dogs are something you own. Kids grow up and make enough money to buy you stuff; dogs grow up and still expect you to pay for their dinner.
If you want a child, you have at least nine months to wait after you make your decision; if you wake up one morning and want a dog, you can have one in your home before dinner time.
Taking care of a puppy is also quite different from tending to your child. It may be necessary to bring in a trainer to teach your pet some discipline. The idea of getting a trainer for your baby might not look so good to the neighbors.
Meanwhile, it’s OK to set a little wooden hut, a couple of rawhide bones and a big bowl of water in your back yard and leave your dog out there all day while you’re at work. This is a somewhat less socially--and legally--acceptable thing to do with your child.
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Now that I am a proud puppy papa, my views have changed. All the above are still true, but they pale in comparison to the ways in which owning dogs really is a dry run for having children.
For example, judging from what I’ve learned from friends who have become parents, having kids totally disrupts your daily routine. Life is no longer about “me,” it’s about “us.” It’s the same deal with dogs. Every night must be spent at home bonding with the family unit. Every day must be spent thinking about getting home to bond with the family unit.
These days, it’s matinee movies and takeout dinners. And even if we do go out for an evening, it generally isn’t much fun because we spend every minute wanting to call home and check on the dogs. Too bad they have yet to learn how to answer the phone.
Even when we’re not home playing with the pups, we’re talking about them. Any conversation I have eventually comes around to describing the cute faces they made when I scratched their bellies that morning or the horrors of housebreaking. Kind of like the way a new parent can’t wait to tell you his or her child’s first words or the first time the babe slept through the night.
And you know the way new moms and dads seem to bond in the park on Saturday afternoon? Well, being a dog owner similarly changes your social circle. The only difference is you stand in a park for hours on a Saturday afternoon conversing freely about breeds and bowel movements instead of preschools and bowel movements.
Then there’s the way the pups slowly start turning you into your parents. Suddenly, you have to be the one dishing out the very sort of discipline you hated to receive as a child. Lately I’ve found myself telling the dogs such things as, “Stop tracking mud into the house” and “No treats until you finish your dinner.”
As if they’re going to listen to what I’m saying.
Adding to the whole parent-child relationship is the sibling rivalry that has erupted between our dogs and the two cats, which have pretty much had the run of the house for years and aren’t too happy to have a couple of stepdogs moving in.
Whenever they’re in the house together, the dogs chase the cats. The cats slap at the dogs. A major ruckus ensues. Then they all come running to Daddy for protection from each other.
I end up scolding them all with some time-honored parental retort like, “You wait until your mommy gets home!”
It’s frightening. Driving a paneled station wagon and voting Republican can’t be far behind.
But at least now I sympathize with friends who complain that being a parent has left them feeling tired all the time. Dogs wear you out, not only physically but emotionally as well. As with a child, you become attached for life from the first moment you clutch that warm little body to your chest. For better and for worse. In our case, it was the latter.
Both dogs were taken from a pound, and little Iggy Pup acquired a bad cough there. Then he developed parvo, a virus that ate away at his stomach lining. After four days in the hospital, he came home only to contract an upper respiratory infection.
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There were more vet visits, special diets and even a trip to a pet herbalist. We were willing to do anything to save our little guy. But just when he seemed to be on the mend, he passed away. This was less than a month after we’d brought him into the family.
On a calendar, that isn’t much time to get to know anyone or anything. In the heart, it was a lifetime. Since he died, I’ve talked to people who can’t understand why we’d still be mourning the death of something that has now been dead for a longer period of time than we knew him. It’s not like he was your kid, they say.
But he was. Anything that requires your constant care and attention, that pays you back simply with a pair of happy eyes and unconditional devotion is your offspring. Losing that connection is something you never completely get over.
Of course, it’s easier to deal with the loss of a dog. You can simply go out and get a new one right away to fill up that hole in your life.
That’s how we ended up adopting Stax (named for Otis Redding’s record label), a beautiful and very healthy year-old vizsla. She’s already stepped in to become Daddy’s new little girl.
Soon Stax and Kasmir (named for the dog Mohammed allowed into Paradise) will be all grown up, and before we know it, they’ll be off to obedience school. They’ll prefer seeing their friends to hanging out with us. They’ll want to stay up past their bedtime. And what do I say when our little girls start bringing home their new boyfriends, Pete the Pit Bull and Ratso the Rottweiler, for Dad’s approval?
