I swore I would never be one of those people. You know the kind—the people that replace their grown children with dogs and then treat them like humans. Yet, here I am.
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My daughter went off to college last year, and we were “taking a break” from pets after our last dog died of cancer. But then a light bulb went off in my head and I woke up one morning thinking I need a dog. There was no logic to this thought; it was simply a fact.
At first, little Dolly was a terror. She wasn’t house-trained, and she chewed any item of laundry or trash she could get her teeth on. It looked like I had bitten off more than I could chew (pardon the pun, I couldn’t resist).
But then things settled down—she eventually became house-trained, and we learned to keep laundry and trash cans away from her grasp. She joined me on daily runs, and we started patronizing businesses and restaurants that allowed dogs. She sleeps at my feet, follows me around the house, and is always up for a car ride. When I get home every day, she races to the door and greets me enthusiastically, standing on her hind legs to give me a human-like hug with her little tail wagging furiously.
And yes, we speak to her like she is our third child, albeit, often in a baby voice. She is still chewing up things if we forget to close our bedroom doors. She still has the occasional accident in the house. Like our human children, we love her unconditionally and can’t stay mad at her for very long. But unlike human children, dogs love us unconditionally.
Maybe that’s why we graduate from children to dogs, because we all crave that kind of love—the kind of love that makes someone jump up and down for joy and wave their tail …
Amanda is the mom of two, a reporter for WRAL-TV and the author of several books including some on motherhood. Find her here on Mondays.