Dog as Baby

How do we all treat our pets - like children. Sometimes substitute children for those who don't have any, or even don't want any. We no longer name our dogs Spot or Ginger, now when I go to the dog park I hear people names, Lynn, Zach, Brooklyn, Dakota.

So, even though I have children, I always talk about my dog as a big, 30-lb, furry, scruffy baby, a love hound. She acts rather like a toddler, always trying to get my attention and love. Annoyed when I pay too much attention to my husband or son. I am definitely not allowed to talk on the telephone or pay attention to other dogs with out a hound intervention.

She is very active, and sometimes quite bored. Going to the park on Sundays, and the farmer's market on Saturdays, and a walk every day is just not enough. I remember the days when my son was little and I was happy to drop him off at day care on Mondays after a long weekend of trying to come up with enough activities to wear him out while still getting done everything I needed to do over the weekend. I was paying for it, but at least he was worn out by the action at day care.

Now, with the dog, she is rather the same. If she is bored and not tired enough, she wakes me up in the middle of the night to go outside in her fenced area, do her business more from boredom than need, get a piece of treat, like a baby who wants an extra bottle because it is restless and can't sleep.

She takes her treat, and happily goes back to the bedroom and goes to sleep, while I struggle to sleep again, and wake up exhausted. The dog is too cute to be mad at, just like a sleeping child, on its back with the legs in the air, content and safe in its bed and in its home, with its family.

It truly is a dog's life.

In sickness and in health

When we get married do we really consider that part of the traditional vows. We hear those words so often in tv shows and movies. But what does it all really mean.

As I watched my father die this year and my parents marital difficulties, they were certainly together in health, but not in sickness. Whatever problems existed before his illness were just magnified 100-fold with each day he was ill.

So now that my husband is ill, not severely, but certainly with a long-term debilitating illness, there is no question in my mind that I will take care of him and do for him everything I did for my father and more. It is easy to love someone when they are vibrant and healthy and they can take care of you. But when someone is ill and needy, not to mention difficult, grouchy, and scared, it is that much harder to love through it all.