A Dog or Not A Dog? That is the Question! (from Archive)

My husband has been going on about getting a dog ever since I met him but we still haven’t got one.  I’ve always had an excuse up my sleeve why we shouldn’t.  Excuses have varied from the fact we were at work all day (before having kids), I hate that wet dog smell, they moult everywhere, you are trapped, your life will never be your own again, I bet I’d end up puppy training it and that we go away too much.  Post having children, they have included that it would be unsafe for a baby if it got dog’s poo in it’s eye, in case the baby went blind plus most of the above.  As you can probably gather, I’m a tad neurotic and don’t like to get my hands dirty.

Anyway, years have sailed by and so far, so good.    I’m not completely heartless because I cried at ‘Marley and Me’; so don’t make me feel bad for not wanting my own dog.  The thing is, now my daughters have grown to the ages of seven and nine, the seven year old wants a puppy too.  I reason with my youngest daughter and my husband that we don’t need a dog of our own, as we can make the most of next-door’s dog.  It comes into our kitchen every morning and shakes it’s paw with my daughter’s hand and she merrily chases him around and him, her.  He eats all the food from our cat bowls (yes, we did get cats but they are so much easier – cat flap, two meals a day, a quick stroke and you’re done).   The dog next door comes in again while the girls are at school and licks my kitchen floor clean (which I must admit is very helpful) then he steals something exciting looking and runs away with it in his jaw.

To be honest, in with a penny, in with a pound (if that is the proper saying) because my husband and two daughters make such a mess in this house with muddy shoes and boots being walked through the hall and skateboards being bashed against the kitchen cupboards, that a dog messing all over the floor won’t make too much difference.  In fact, by Jove, that’s it.

My family are so out of control that maybe my dog wouldn’t be.  If I trained the dog properly, then it would wipe its paws before it came into the house, foul in an allocated patch in the garden (woofing twice to be let outside to partake in such ablutions).  Our new canine friend would then join me up at the table for a nice cup of tea (mine taken from a china teacup and the dog from a china bowl).  We would look at the rest of our unruly family and raise our eyes…. after using an anti-bacterial hand and paw gel first though, obviously.