Can dogs prepare you for parenthood? Yes
Have you heard the one about the girl who adopts a dog and treats him like a baby?
Yeah, that was me, back before I had a baby of my own. I was convinced my dog was fully preparing me for motherhood, and that when I did have my first child, my heart would grow enough to carry equal love for them both.
Well, I was right in some regards. I can now fully attest that having a dog is in fact a lot like having a toddler — for better and for worse.
My husband and I adopted Alfie — formerly named Peanut Butter for his love of, you guessed it — from Berea Animal Rescue as soon as we moved into our house in 2019.
I had been waiting for the day from the moment I moved out of my childhood home. I begged my husband for years to get a pup, and when we finally bought our house, he had run out of reasons not to.
It was love at first sight — or, in our case, first nip. At the shelter, we took Alfie out in the play yard to see how we’d get along. And despite it raining, which I’ve come to learn we share a distaste for, he ran around freely and even played fetch. (We’ve also come to learn that he does not, in fact, play fetch regularly. He is, however, a great show dog.)
I wanted to take him home immediately, but another person already had an adoption pending for him. He cried as we put him back in the cage, and I promised I’d be back for him. He nipped my nose lightly through the bars.
Sure enough, that adoption fell through, and days later, Alfie was all ours.
He was spoiled rotten from the beginning with a spot in our bed from day one, hours of walks a day, and baskets of toys in nearly every room of the house.
He was also high maintenance from the beginning. We quickly found out he had chronic allergies, resulting in incessant itching that woke us up at all hours of the night. So was the start of our nearly bimonthly trips to the vet, and
the end of us sleeping well at night.
Then, the baby arrived. Soon, we had two little ones interrupting our sleep, making messes, and, as my son Henry got older, competing with one another for my attention. Both seemed to constantly be needing something.
And while that admittedly can drive me a little crazy at times, my love for both my son and Alfie has only grown, especially as I watch their interactions with one another. Their time together is when I see Henry at his sweetest and Alfie at his most patient.
Dogs are a nonstop responsibility. Though there are obvious differences, I fully believe having Alfie before my son helped prepare me to be a better mom.
Pets teach you about life and commitment. They drain your bank account. They fill your heart like a child. They can also break it like one, too.
Alfie’s health has begun to get more complicated. He now has what appear to be recurring bladder stones that require surgery to remove. In the past year, he’s gone through three procedures.
My husband and I are starting to face difficult decisions as we navigate his health care and the cost to keep up with it. It’s a stressful, heartbreaking reminder of reality. But it is, I think, part of yet another parenthood lesson that dogs teach us: We cannot protect our babies from everything.
When I get sad about this, my dog, ever aware of emotions, will occasionally come up and give my nose a nip, as if to tell me everything is all right.