Every boy should grow up with a dog! Throughout my childhood, we always had a dog in the house. However, I never felt like our dogs were MY dogs. Sure, I was responsible for cleaning up after the dogs and walking them occasionally BUT the dogs ALWAYS loved my mom (she has a great voice for babies and dogs AND she fed the entire family – including the dog!!) and saw my dad as the alpha male. I never got to have a loyal friend that I always dreamt about.

My wife also LOVES dogs. And, for her, the bigger the dog, the better (which is funny because she is only 5’2”). And, while she grew up with dogs too, I think her experience was very similar to mine. However, as an adult, she and her sister had a dog - Hoover – who was her buddy, companion, running/riding partner, foot/bed-warmer, garbage disposal, sounding board, and loyal member of her family. Sadly, they had to put Hoover to sleep three years ago. My wife has healed from that loss and she is ready to add a four – legged member to our family.

I Hope that our son will grow up loving dogs like we do! If he doesn’t then he doesn’t but all indications are that he does – HE ABSOLUTELY LOSES HIS MIND WHEN HE SEES THEM ON THE STREET (he lets out a high pitch squeal when he sees them and don’t let one come up to him …. J- it’s like Mardi Gras ). It makes me laugh and smile every time I see him around dogs!

I am not sure I can articulate anything new about why a boy (child) should grow up with dogs but here is why it is important to us. First, he may be an only child (an opportunity cost of having a child at 40) so I hope that having a dog will teach him to think about something else other than himself. I hope that taking care of a dog will teach him to be caring. I hope that, by caring for a living being, he will learn to be responsible, empathetic and nurturing. I hope that he will see his dog as his best buddy and he will look back on his childhood experiences with his dog and smile – they will discover new worlds, swim, camp in the yard, dig holes, keep each other from being bored, spend rainy days together, and even sit in “time out” together. I hope they sleep together. In short, I hope he gets to experience all of the wonderful things that dogs bring to peoples’ lives.

So, the logical question is “why don’t we have a dog?” Short answer – timing and space. We thought about getting a dog before he was born but we decided that we didn’t know exactly what we were getting into so we didn’t want to put ourselves in a situation where our dog would not be getting the attention he deserved. Anyway, we are also STUCK in LA and our space is limited and that would not be fair to the big dog my wife wants. Finally, we decided it might make a little more sense to wait until our son is a little older and he can be a much more active part of the dog’s life.

Any thoughts? Suggestions?