Don't do it, some people will tell you. Don't become a dog owner. Living with a dog is a commitment! Once you take that pup home, the carefree days of hanging out at Tracy's house after school, or just going in to watch television or out to play after school, are over. You have Responsibilities. You have become a Dog Owner. No sooner can you take your shoes off than that dog will require you to put them on again and take it for a walk. A carload of your friends will pass you by on the way to the lake. You can't just climb into the car. You have to take the dog home! And feed it! And make sure its bowl is full of water! All the spontaneity has gone from your life, and your friends will get tired of waiting and go to the lake without you, and there you are, watching that dog slurp up disgusting Alpo...
In short: the arguments against becoming a dog owner, as a kid, are almost exactly the same as the arguments your Dad once heard against becoming a father. And if you say "Pooh!" to the arguments against your becoming a dog owner, now, you're less likely to listen to the arguments against being a good father when you are older.
You will have learned that no amount of "spontaneity" is as good as having somebody waiting just for you, at the end of a day at school or work.
You will have learned to snap yourself out of thinking bitter, angry thoughts about unreasonable assignments, sorry pieces of work who don't pull their weight in work groups, bigots, snobs, and bores, when the time comes to focus on how much you love the one who's waiting for you, back.
You will have learned that, although there are disease conditiosn in which dragging yourself from the car pool to the couch is all you can do and you're not able to taked those few more extra steps to clean and refill the dog's dishes, you don't have them and it really adds nothing to your normal sense of tiredness, at the end of the day, to walk and feed the dog.
From these life experiences will grow your experience as a parent (or aunt, uncle, teacher, or foster parent) some day.
There are other ways to prepare for parenthood, like those silly one-week simulation games where you and one other kid have you drag a flour sack around everywhere pretending it's your baby, but nothing else is as close or as satisfying as being a "pet parent."
A child's first venture into dog ownership can be made as casually as a parent's friend saying, "Our dog had puppies! This one's for you!"
I don't recommend this. I think kids should sign contracts with their parents, before they become pet owners, specifying that nobody else is allowed to feed, walk, or clean up after THEIR PET unless they are in the hospital.
Parents may in some cases have to drag kids home from the lake, turn off the television, confiscate the games, and order the children to care for THEIR PETS but parents must not deprive the children of the bonding experience responsibility can bring.
There are benefits for younger children in living with family pets who are the parents' responsibility but, when children are old enough to want pets of their own, they are ready to form the habit of caring for their own pets.
My first pets were chickens, and there's much to be said for chickens as pets for children, especially if the parents want the animals to teach the children something about family life. A younger generation of chickens won't add much to the budget. Hens usually pay for themselves, and roosters become food.
Around age six, having grown up with chickens, my brother started wishing for a dog of his own. When we were eight and eleven years old, a family friend's dog had puppies. Ours was not a successful dog ownership experience. I think that was partly because the dog was thrust upon my parents, who accepted it as a "family pet." "Family pets" work out better when they really are the parents' pets. For that poor little pup, being a "family pet" meant that he was nobody's pet, was not taught anything, spent his days chained to the fence waiting for a plate of mostly leftover human food to be scraped into his bowl, and envied the chickens, who were real pets and were allowed to roam around the yard. It was no life for a clever little terrier. It ruined him.
Children whose parents have grown up with their own puppies, years ago, can grow up with a pup, with a parent guiding and encouraging them to teach the little fellow all that a dog needs to know. Our parents unfortunately were not dog people. They had liked dogs who belonged to other humans, as we did. They imagined that feeding a dog would make it as good a pet as those other people's dogs. I think it took our poor pup about two days to realize that no one at our house understood him at all, that although we liked the idea of having a dog we did not, in fact, even have room in our lives for one, and that we would have done better to be content with our chickens.
And after that realization, for the dog, came six or eight months of having it ground into his consciousness...No companionship. We didn't take him along on our walks; we didn't make time to take him for walks since he was out in the yard, There was no room for a dog in any of our games. He was chained to the fence when we played tennis; nobody threw balls for him to fetch. We expected him to know how to do things the chickens couldn't do, thought less of him for not knowing what those things might be, and never gave a thought to teaching him anything--although we spent time, daily, teaching the chickens their tricks, and might reasonably have been expected to spend some time teaching a dog, but we just didn't. Dogs love to please their humans but this little fellow had no chance.
So I say, to kids who want dogs: Don't imagine that you can just leave an animal out in a field and have it magically turn into Lassie or Flicka. A cat might decide it would be fun to make a pet of you, if you turn it loose in the barn and set out food every day. A dog or a horse will be lonely and bored. Dogs and horses are so interesting to so many humans because they are intelligent--in their way--but, because they have so much of their own kind of brain power, they won't become your friends and working partners without spending some time coming to respect your kind of intelligence.
Don't be ashamed to get into conversations with adults who know more about dogs than you do...
"Going to the store? Why don't you take your dog?"
"There are other dogs along the way."
"You'll need to keep him on a short leash and lead him past houses where there are other dogs. Can you hold him on a short leash? Practice every day until you're sure you can. Other dogs might be friendly if he started to approach their homes, or they might not. They need to see that you can keep him on the road, moving right along."
"And dogs aren't allowed inside the store."
"One of you will have to wait outside with the dog while the other goes in to trade."
Such conversations would probably have been good for both of us and our dog, but they didn't take place; the dog just languished, chained to the fence, like a convict in prison.
If you are a kid who wants a dog, know that you're in for a daily commitment to be your dog's friend. Don't leave him to stare up at the sky and wonder what he did that was so bad that he's been sentenced to live with you.
Because a dog is a big responsibility, adults may want to let you start out with a smaller pet. One of the standard wails of childhood used to be, "My parents won't let me keep a dog. Only a dopey parakeet, or a goldfish." I lived with a few goldfish as a child, and I fully understand how children fail to bond with goldfish. Although goldfish are much more intelligent than the fish people catch and eat, they offer no emotional rewards for their humans; they are just a chore. Drop in only so many Fish Flakes per day, no more no less, for as long as you want to have something orange moving around on the shelf, catching the light. If you can provide good spring water and a few good healthy snails you can look at the pretty flash of orange for years...but maybe you'd rather look at a potted plant. My brother and I had a series of goldfish, mostly called Goldie; the one who came to us with a muddy brown stripe that looked like a horrible fish disease was the one who swam around for almost five years. We were responsible children, even for Stripe. He outgrew his brown stripe and looked nice and orange. But I think both of us would have preferred a plant.
Sometimes people just don't bond even with parakeets. Before I was born, my parents had a pair of parakeets. We grew up hearing stories of all the cute, clever things those parakeets did, and one day a visiting aunt took us into Kingsport and bought us a parakeet of our own. And it never was any kind of pet. Dad's pet parakeet had become his "Little Buddy" in a day or two, he said, but ours never buddied up to anybody. It never tried to imitate speech, although we had chickens who did that. It never perched on anyone's shoulder or pocket,although we had chickens who did that. It was tame enough not to flap or squawk when food and water were delivered to it, but that was the only sign it ever gave of recognizing us. It didn't like anybody. It was a chore for three summers, and then one winter even our parents went down with flu. Well, parakeets who perch on somebody's shoulder now and then, or have at least a try at saying "G'day" or "Budgie," are more likely to have their food and water dishes maintained when people have flu. Our stupid bird did have a lesson to teach the world. He might have taught the world more if he'd learned to say, "Budgie wanna go back to Australia and live with my own kind," which is probably what his sullenness was saying. Some birds don't mind being cute pets in cages on the wrong side of the planet from their home, and some do.
And although the caged rodent family can be cute, clever pets, I've never personally bonded with one to the extent of not understanding the cat's or dog's view of them; "Someone went to all the trouble to bring us such a nice, clean, wholesome, delicious snack!" People do love gerbils; I never have.
Anyone can learn to love an animal that seems to like or trust us in some way, although the smaller the animal is, the less likely it seems to be that what the animal feels is trust or affection. I write about moths and butterflies because so many other people don't. I don't think of them as pets, but I did once have a Personal Moth, a big colorful silk moth, who spent his few days in my closet. I doubt very much that the moth was capable of thinking "I am staying with a friendly human." I think its thoughts were more like "I was here before and nothing chased me, and a female of my kind has been somewhere near here."The collection of nerves that can be considered a moth's brain are not organized in a way that would suggest that moths are capable of much thought or feeling. His homing instinct was endearing, anyway. I didn't want to touch the moth--a large moth's feet feel remarkably like the feet of the large tropical ants we owe our existence to our ancestors' being unable to stand. I did feel protective of the moth. He had as much sense, and was as good a pet, as nature intended his kind of animal to be.
If you are a kid who wants a dog, and someone insists that you start by learning to care for a parakeet whom nobody loves...you do learn things from the dopey parakeet that carry over into relationships with more enjoyable animals. Like the importance of caring for the silly thing, or getting someone to care for it, even if you have the flu. Being kind to an animal who frankly loathes you is a special skill. It might convince a sponsor to send you to veterinary school.
Here are some dogs who have shown some patience with children and might be good pets for a ten- or twelve-year-old who signs a contract to care for a dog. Petfinder actually has a sort field to sort out animals who seem friendly to children, though it's not perfect.
Zipcode 10101: Will from New York City
His web page: https://www.petfinder.com/dog/will-66652004/ny/new-york/furry-smiles-international-rescue-ca2510/
Actually he's not from New York City. Something looks dodgy about the NYC Petfinder page this morning. Are there no dogs that have lost homes in the big city this week? Are all the dogs in NYC shelters surplus animals from other parts of the country? The situation warrants investigation but, meanwhile, here is a photogenic mixed-breed dog who is said to have a great personality and do well with children. The shelter that has claimed responsibility for him is in New York City.
The thought crosses my mind, not for the first time, that in a way these photo contests are contrary to the organizing principles of Petfinder.com. If people always look at the pages for urban hubs with convenient zipcodes, when will they ever see the adorable adoptable pets in the small towns? "You could at least look at the dogs near you!" the site seems to say reproachfully to me. I could, but people who live near me mostly don't use the Internet and people who use the Internet mostly don't want to drive out to shelters near me. Maybe it's because too many people just look for dog pictures on the NYC page that the NYC page is now clogged with photos of dogs from Alabama and Texas and Wisconsin and everywhere but NYC. And then again...maybe the War On Pets is being lost in NYC.
Zipcode 20202: Harley from DC
Her web page: https://www.petfinder.com/dog/harley-69746321/dc/washington/save-our-herders-outreach-va701/
She's young and pretty and lively and full of energy. She will roll over to solicit tickles. She will want lots of walks. If you want a dog who will walk with you everywhere, inviting compliments and scaring off evildoers, adopt Harley. Or one of the other homeless dogs--Harley just posed for an especially cute picture.
Zipcode 30303: Huck from Atlanta
As in Huckleberry Finn, or as in those Missing Persons Mysteries podcsts with the great lazy pale-colored rescue dog" Probably the former. Huck is a coon hound. This web site does not recommend hunting raccoons with dogs--it's hard on the dogs--but notes that coon hounds actually like long cross-country walk/runs. You don't have to hunt but you do need to hike. If you are a hiker whose parents would feel better if you travelled with a dog, Huck may be for you.
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