AJC > Sandy Springs > Blog > Archives > 2007 > June > 18
Monday, June 18, 2007
Dogs move up in the family pecking order
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
With our son spending the summer working in Indiana and our daughter off on a class trip to Italy our three dogs are moving up a notch in the family pecking order.
This does not mean they qualify for full-fledged “child” status. Our kids are our kids, our dogs are our dogs, and never the twain shall meet. That said, with both kids heading to college in August, it’s a good bet that Jake, Molly and Sydney will be enjoying a lifestyle upgrade as autumn approaches.
Part of this has to do with purely practical matters. Kids demand and deserve much of their parents’ attention. After the kids are taken care of, then it’s dog time. No kids at home means, theoretically, we have more time to devote to the dogs. That’s their story anyway. The dogs, not our kids.
Pets do have some advantages over kids. None of our three pups have ever asked for their own mobile phone. And that means we’ve never had the heated discussion over how outrageous their charges for text-messaging were in a given month.
No matter how smart any of our three dogs may be, we’re never going to fret over being able to send them to a really good college. The closest we ever got to this was when Jake was sent to dog boot camp several years ago for some attitude adjustment. Suffice to say it worked better for him than rehab did for Lindsay Lohan.
Dogs never “need” new clothes, mp3-enabled running shoes, a new laptop or ask for a car. They don’t surf the Net for naughty pictures or put up scandalous personal myspace.com pages. I don’t have to worry that their CD collection is going to have inappropriate lyrics.
None of our dogs will ever be seen out at a late-night club with Paris Hilton.
Not that they’re without their quirks. They’re pretty adamant about feeding time, getting lots of cool water during the hot months and the three huge dog beds my wife bought for them.
And it may be a good that we have extra time to devote to the three amigos, as they’re pretty upset over all these allegations surrounding Mike Vick and his alleged ties to dog fighting. All three believe that dogs were put here for a lot of reasons, but tearing into each other under the guise of entertainment is not one of them.
And while they let the justice system run its course where Vick is concerned, they’ll be rooting for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers this fall. That is, if I get their satellite dish installed in time for football season.
