A fact that is little known to non-parents is that those of us who have children laugh at you when you compare your dog to having a child. Truthfully, many of us who are parents did the same thing before we had kids, but let me just say right now: a dog is NOT a child! When your dog tells you five minutes before he has to leave for school that his history project is due today but he forgot to do it, when your dog wakes you up every 2-3 hours to suck on your nipples, when your dog decides that she will only eat yellow food from now on, comes down with chicken pox right in the middle of your busy season at work, needs to be comforted from her first broken heart or asks why Jimmy has two mommies, THEN you can say that having a dog is like being a parent. Maybe.
I have to say, though, that there are certain characteristics that older babies and toddlers most definitely share with dogs. So perhaps it’s more apt to say that if you have a toddler, it’s like having a dog? I mean, they chew up everything they can put in their mouths, you have to clean up after them when they eat, pee and poop (although I will say that dogs don’t generally agree to wearing diapers), they get around on all fours, and as I just found out, they apparently like to play fetch.
I just found my husband in the kitchen with Joshua. Josh was playing with one of the random Leap Frog fridge magnets that we actually still have left and dropped it on the floor, making it skid across the ceramic tiles. Josh went and retrieved it, then brought it to Dad and handed it to him. Dad then threw it back across the room, Josh retrieved. They did this for about five minutes, both laughing hysterically. I told my husband he obviously missed our dog.
I’m not sure who’s stranger: grown men or toddlers, but they are entertaining. Any other toddler/dog similarities?
Cleaning up what fell on the floor after a meal:
A dog will almost always eat anything that has been carelessly tossed to the side by a toddler, or similarly, unintentionally fallen off the fork of an adult who "missed their mouth".
A toddler, on the other hand, will not touch a scrap of food on the plate in front of them, but find the tiniest of crumbs on the floor (you know… the one Bad Mommy – ahem, me – will miss) and take great interest in shoving every little thing in his mouth.
Not that it actually happens… you know…
Totally hypothetical situation…
Of course…
Of course
We had a dog before we had children and my wife used to get angry at people who would call our dog "the dog". She would say, "don't call her a dog, call her by her name."
We sunk a lot of money into that animal, and now in reflection we realized that it was kind of a surrogate child. But when it was suggested to us that that was the case, my wife would get upset.
By the way, I play "fetch" with my 2 year old all the time. She loves it.
I absolutely agree about pets being surrogate children. Before we had kids we adopted a dog and a cat. Then another cat. Then another cat… we referred to ourselves as "mommy" and "daddy" (*hangs head in shame*). Then we realized we were avoiding an issue and somehow we ended up with four kids. Who knew?
I have pets because I don't WANT all those kid issues you mentioned that set kids apart from pets. People who think of pets as people are just going to end up with unhappy\unstable pets, because well, they aren't people, and don't want to be treated as such! When I'm ready for kids, I'll have or adopt them, but I will still have my pets!