My dog is just as important as your kid
YOU think your child is the be-all and end-all? I beg to differ. My dog is just as important as your kid and I’m not going to apologise for it.
YES, that is a photo of my dog with Santa. Yes, he looks way cuter than your kid when they met Santa.
I’ll be the first person to tell you that I don’t care for Christmas — ugh, carols are the worst. But this isn’t some diatribe about my Grinchiness — I’ll spare you from that particular rant, today.
Instead, this is a rant about why my dog is just as important as your kids. I’m only telling you about my anti-Christmas stance because it illustrates I am so obsessed with my dog that there was no way I wasn’t going to plonk him next to a dude suffering in the Aussie heat under a thick layer of red polyester.
Anyway, I digress. Just look at that face — that is the face of love. Really, it’s the face of, “Mum, why am I here, where’s that treat you promised me?”
When I tell people I’m taking my dog to do Santa photos, I’m usually met with a cocked brow or a, “Oh, I didn’t know you could do that,” while they politely resist trying to tell me I’m a crazy person.
But how is that any crazier than putting your kid on the lap of some costumed rando in an unflatteringly lit pit of hell? (I’ve heard other people call these places shopping centres but I stand by my characterisation.)
I’ve had people tsk-tsk me, giving me crap for paying for doggie daycare one day a week, admonishing me with a, “You know, he’s only a dog, he’s not a child.” Yes, thanks for clearing that up, I hadn’t noticed.
There’s a whole doggie world people with mere human kids don’t know about. Our daycares post dozens of photos of our fur-babies playing every day so you can check in on them. We have dog park Facebook and Whatsapp groups and, if you’re feeling particularly indulgent, you can book your pupper in for a massage. There are even doggie birthday parties — there are themed balloons you can tie to the tree!
And you know what’s great? The doggo parent community aren’t cliquey or critical like the human ones.
Here’s the thing about my dog, and most fur-parents will tell you the same thing without any reservation: My dog is my kid. Except I don’t really like human kids so, to me, he’s actually better than any child I’ve met.
Unlike kids, he doesn’t drool and he’s rarely sticky. He doesn’t need 24/7 babysitting and it’s not a big deal if both me and my partner are home late. It only took a couple of weeks to toilet train him and, like most dogs, he has perfect teeth so we’ll never have to pay for an orthodontist.
He doesn’t try to bore me with some asinine story about what little Maddie said to little Bobby that made little Bobby cry and tell the teacher.
I can also have a drink with a bunch of other doggo parents at the park at 2pm in the afternoon without getting poo-pooed by some Judgey McJudgeface.
If there was a fire and I had to choose between saving my dog or your son, I’d save my dog. Even though my dog is never going to cure cancer, let’s face it, your son probably won’t either.
So why the hell are dog owners treated like second-rate citizens in this so-called pet-loving country of ours? Our puppers aren’t allowed in so many places, like on public transport, even though the ratio of well-behaved and clean dogs to not are probably higher than well-behaved and clean kids to not.
My dog has never peed in a shop whereas I’ve been present when a human toddler dropped his dacks and let go. His mum’s reaction, by the way, was to not apologise, dismiss the whole thing as kids being kids, before walking out and leaving the horrified shop assistant to deal with that puddle of wee. Classy.
Plus, I will never have to sit through a seven-hour eisteddfod or a Presentation Day.
So yeah, I’m obsessed with my dog and I’m going to take doggie Santa photos because he’s every bit as important as your kid.
And I don’t have to worry about telling him Santa isn’t real.
Come tell me how your human kid is going to change the world at @wenleima on Twitter.