Mary Allen
Dogs are cute and adorable. But honestly: would we really have become dog owners if we had known these eight things before our first dog?
Dogs are really cute and all. Faithful eyes, huge floppy ears, wagging tail. All is well and good. But would we still have wanted one if we’d known these eight things before the first dog? (In a nutshell: Absolutely! )
Dogs are always hungry
If it were up to the dogs, they would just keep eating. Until they are perfectly round and can only roll down one more mountain. So that this doesn’t happen, we two-legged friends have to be very careful about what our four-legged friends get in front of their muzzles.
We have to ration dog food, barricade the entrance to the kitchen with child gates, and padlock closet doors tighter than Fort Knox. And when we’re finally ready to enjoy our long-awaited dinner, we have a trusting, drooling, fluffy dog head in our laps that want some of OUR food.
Dogs force us to work
The insatiable dog leads us straight to point two: What do dogs like to do best? Wolf down. And who do you need for that? Us. Or at least our wallets, because dog food is expensive. The choosier the taste buds of the dear dog, the more expensive it becomes. So we have to go to work because money doesn’t grow on trees. And when we come home exhausted and exhausted in the evening, we are ignored with a cold shoulder and raised snout because we dared to leave the prince and princess dog alone.
P.S.: But don’t forget to fill the bowl, two-legged friends!
Dogs are always watching you
It’s dark and foggy outside. A clock is ticking somewhere. In the film, victim number four screams before dying a merciless serial killer’s death. Two big brown eyes are watching us.
A car drives by outside. Something is rattling in the house. Two big brown eyes are watching us.
We shudder, turn off the TV and decide to go to bed. Teeth are brushed and dental floss is taken out. Two big brown eyes are watching us.
We slip under the covers and turn off the light. Four big brown eyes are watching us. WAIT FOR WHAT?
You no longer have privacy. Nowhere.
Dogs don’t understand the concept of privacy. Just like closed doors. Would you like to have your ten minutes in the bathroom for things that you do in the bathroom? Can you forget because
- Bello is either already far and wide in front of the toilet because he knows your stomach better than you,
- Does he stand outside the door yelping and heartbroken
- He just makes short work of it and kicks in the bathroom door with a cinematic roundhouse kick.
Dogs are not ashamed
Shame is also something that dogs are completely alien to. The rich mother-in-law, who doesn’t get along with you very well anyway because you are neither a rich daughter of aristocrats nor a rich son of a banker and only work in an online editorial office for dog stories, is visiting.
You try your best to serve the tastiest cakes and the finest coffee. What is your dog doing? Pukes at the mother-in-law’s feet. Mother-in-law screams, a dog looks, sniffs, and calmly eats the vomit again. (After all, there has to be ordered.) Mother-in-law faints.
Okay, so maybe the lack of shame in dogs isn’t such a bad thing after all.
Throwing the ball usually means retrieving the ball yourself.
If you would like to get a dog because you are looking forward to being out in the fresh air every day, let me tell you one thing: Maybe you already see yourself in the dog park with blowing hair, a coffee in your hand, in the other hand one of those fancy, expensive designer dog balls. You throw the ball in an elegant nonchalance and with great momentum. It flies far and your well-behaved dog races off enthusiastically and with blowing fur. Polite as he is, the master fetcher comes right back and drops the ball into your hand while you’re still casually sipping your coffee. Oh, how envious the other dog owners will all look.
What do you think! Because instead of going to the ball, the dog runs three ball throws further to the dog lady. You and your ball: forgotten and ignored. So off you go, through mud and dirt, digging through dense undergrowth, spilling your coffee, ruining your shoes, scratching branches, and never finding that expensive designer ball again. But at least you’re out in the fresh air.
Dogs are thieves
Well, to be fair, many dog breeds like retrievers (e.g. Labradors or Golden Retrievers) have been trained for centuries to fetch things for us. Mostly from the forest, field, or pond when our ancestors still hunted ducks and other small game.
But because most of us don’t do that anymore, there aren’t any more ducks to steal either. So Golden Retrievers and their relatives conspired together and now just steal from us. Socks, shoes, underwear, blankets, pillows, toilet paper – simply everything that fits between the resourceful snout.
And when we catch the dogs in the act, they don’t have the decency to quietly and secretly lay down their prey as if nothing happened. Instead, they wink at us and proudly trot away, our socks firmly in hand.
Dogs become the most important thing in the world
But the biggest problem with those darn dogs is that once they’re here, they’re meant to stay. It doesn’t matter whether they are greedy and expensive, don’t give us a moment’s peace and steal what isn’t nailed down – once we have taken a four-legged friend into our family, he becomes one of the most important things in the world for us.
Resigned to fate, we always bring new dog food and new socks, allow ourselves to be watched and stolen from, and look for Bello’s ball in the deepest forest. We may sometimes be a little annoyed, but when the curly head jumps up happily and with wiggling ears because you’ve found your favorite ball again, scratches, mismatched pairs of socks, kicked-in bathroom doors, and empty wallets don’t matter. If the dog is happy, we are happy.