Puppies

Neither my husband nor I are dog people. We both grew up in families with dogs, as well as cats in abundance, but it just wasn’t our thing. And I may have been slightly relieved when I realized that we were kindred spirits in this, too. It made a lot of future decisions much easier. Like whether we would own a dog.

Cats are handy to have around the farm. They eat mice and gophers and don’t cost much to care for. They can go weeks at a time feasting upon the fields instead of Friskies. Our first kitties–Jeeves and Wooster–were given to us early in our marriage and we thoroughly enjoyed them and their antics. We missed Jeeves and his feline personality when he disappeared. And when Oofy finally replaced Wooster, we were sad that he wasn’t as social as his predecessors.

But we drew the line at dogs. A dog was fine for Dad and Mom to have on the farm, handy for keeping deer out of the garden and turkeys out of the grain. And dogs were fine for our neighbor to have, to keep her company and lick our toes during dinner. But we got our fill caring for them when she was gone. And a dog was fine for my brother to have, to help my brother learn some responsibility and entertain our kids when we went to visit. But our own dog was out of the question, for a hundred and one reasons that we’d be glad to enumerate if you ever suggested otherwise.

We neglected to pass the non-animal-lover gene on to our children, however. At least in their imagination. So perhaps we should have thought a bit more before reading them the Little House series in which the dog Jack plays such a big role. With an anti-social cat being the only pet on the premises (unless you count one and a half dozen even more anti-social chickens), our children’s imaginations have created their own substitutes. And while I am convinced that the noise level of these imaginary pets is quite near what would be if we had a real live puppy in the house, I count my blessings, because these puppies don’t eat a bit of food. And it’s a good thing, because each of our three children has their own!

vintage puppy

Of course, one puppy looks to the naked eye like a wooden John Deere tractor on a string. But that’s just to those who haven’t found him tied up tight to a bed leg or a toy box and been told not to disturb the puppy. The other distinctly resembles a vintage pull toy with a clown driving a car. But that is forgotten when the string breaks and the puppy is rendered immobile, and all you hear are my oldest daughter’s cries, “My puppy! My puppy!” The third really and truly is a puppy pull toy. And you’d think perhaps it was what gave them the idea except that as I recall, the tractor was a puppy before the puppy came into the picture on little man’s first birthday.

1st birthday puppy

When all three of our children are racing around the kitchen table pulling their puppies behind them, I’m tempted to invest in a kennel to contain the noise once in a while. Inevitability, they are exercising their puppies when the phone rings, and I have to yell above the din, “Make your puppies be quiet or take them to your room!”

tractor puppy

But even though their strings do frequently get caught up in their wheels–er, legs–at least they don’t make messes on the floor or eat puppy chow at the same rate our kids eat oatmeal. And thankfully, my imagination is vivid enough to believe that our children enjoy their three little pull toys almost as much as they would a real live puppy. Almost.

puppy

And when they feel the need for livelier puppies than those little pull toys supply, they start playing each other’s puppies. With one child crawling around on all fours, barking to beat the band, and another child yelling, “Puppy! Come here!” –well, I wouldn’t want to rob them of their imaginary delights by supplying a real live puppy, would I?

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7 Comments

  1. Awww… I am definitely not on your side! I have 2 big dogs in our house with us (and a mostly grown kitten too). They are both 50-something lb black lab mixes. I can’t imagine life without them. Our younger dog spends much of the day outside and guards our chickens and ducks from the big bad coyotes. Our 2 1/2 year old son loves them to death and I am sure our 6 week old son will too. I can’t tell you how many times he has giggled at them, or given them hugs, or received kisses in return, or the innumerable times he has thrown tennis balls and frisbees for them. He loves his doggies!

    But while they are well behaved, they do track in dirt and I have to clean the house more often (which is why they aren’t allowed in parts of the house).The day one of our dogs got sprayed by a skunk a few weeks ago, made me briefly question the wisdom of having 2 large dogs and 2 boys in the same house. Yikes!

  2. Oh … this made me laugh. Partly because I’m so NOT a dog person. And partly because although I was scared of dogs, my sisters and I had a number of wooden dogs on wheels and often pretended to be each other’s (very excited, friendly and loud) puppies when we were little, complete with a lot of barking. Of course. That makes it more fun! 馃檪

  3. This has to be one of the funniest and cutest posts I’ve read on anyone’s blog in a long time!!! Love their little (er um… BIG) imaginations! =)
    I also am not a big animal person… however I do remember how much having a puppy as a kid with my siblings taught us responsibility of another living thing and that’s hard to beat, so perhaps some day when my kids are old enough to do most of the dog-caring work and when we live in a place we can actually have pets, we’ll *think* about getting a puppy! =) Oh, and if that day comes, the dog will definitely have to stay outside! I can’t stand animal hair or smell in the house! =P lol!

  4. Ah! Tell the kids that Aunt Natalie will gladly get them a puppy. They probably inherited their love of animals from me. Most discussions with Will about animals (be they sugar gliders, savannah cats, giraffes, four-foot iguanas, or rats) usually involve my saying, “Yeah, I wanted one of those once.”

    1. This was my fear–that in posting this I would invite well-meaning relatives to supply my children with the missing living, drooling puppies, LOL! 馃槈 But now, you have a child–and we can reciprocate. 馃槈

  5. Ha! This was great, Gretchen. We did finally break down and get a puppy.
    He’s hilarious. And lives in the barn.

    And by “lives in the barn” I mean– he is not even allowed on the house side of the road. Mostly for his own safety. Mostly.

    The nieces and nephews ADORE him.
    He does earn his keep by bringing the cows in, so that’s something. 馃檪

    But I’m still not really a dog person. I mean, the older he gets, the smellier he gets. lol.

    1. Oh. The smell. I didn’t even get into the smell. I don’t have a good sense of smell, but I can smell dog. 馃槈

      Yes, see, our cat earns his keep, killing gophers. I don’t think a dog would earn its own keep at our house. I knew I had another good excuse. 馃槈