… unless you intend for it to be part of your family and you are willing to make personal sacrifices to make that a reality.
I will admit that my wife and I are a little crazy about our beagle. His name is Drake and he will be two years old on August 14th. Yes. We know his exact birthday. I told you we were a little crazy about him. He gets 2-4 walks per day. We wrestle and play chase with him around the house. We take him to the dog park on the weekends. Sometimes we let him sleep in our bed. We love him and we feel like his presence enriches our lives. We are more active and we don’t let activities take over our evenings because we can’t be away from him every night of the week. He makes us feel happy when he comes and says thank you for a meal with some kisses (yes, he really does that). We have a real family relationship with him and we think its beneficial for all of us.
Drake is not, however, the perfect dog. If we leave our cook books uncovered or the accent pillows on the couch down while we are gone, there is a very good bet that they will be chewed on when we get home. He destroyed some plants in my garden this year and sometimes he’s just got too much energy when I’m tired from a day of work. He has also had two seizures this year, so we’ve had to pay for some expensive vet visits and he’ll be on medication for the rest of his doggy life. So he takes effort, money and proper care to keep as a pet. We are well aware of these things and yet we believe that the benefits of keeping him far outweigh the costs.
We also have to consider Drake’s best interests as well. When God told mankind to have dominion over the earth in Genesis, it wasn’t a gift to be ravaged. It was a responsibility to be managed. If Drake doesn’t have a positive lifestyle, then we aren’t really keeping him as a pet or a member of the family. In that case, he becomes a toy that we use when we feel like and ignore otherwise. This is not a healthy way for people to treat animals and not a healthy attitude for us to have in general. Instead, it is selfishness and a destructive attitude to have towards the earth given to us for stewardship. Even if you don’t believe the Bible is true or that God is real, I would argue that this is still a negative and destructive pattern of behavior considering what it shows about our attitudes towards other living creatures and the limited resources on our planet.
That said, the people that get a dog and ignore it really piss me off. There is a house in our neighborhood where the family keeps the dog in the garage or in his kennel in the garage all time, at least as far as I can tell. No matter when we walk by, day or night, this poor animal is in the garage and barking at everyone and anything going by. It’s lonely and the people that own it should be ashamed of themselves. I hear stories like this all the time from shelter workers we meet at the dog park. People surrender dogs to the shelter and say they “just couldn’t handle the dog” or it was “too destructive.” Sometimes they come right out and say the animal was in a kennel most of the time and whenever it was out, the family couldn’t handle it. Gee, I wonder why?
Dogs, in case you’ve never seen The Dog Whisperer or read a book about them, are social animals. They might have been bred to be very different from their wild wolf ancestors, but they still think in terms the pack and their relation to others. Not only were they bred to be companions, but the breeds we know and love were mostly bred for working or some specific utility that most families don’t know or understand. So not only do dogs require companionship and social interaction to be healthy, but they also need exercise to satisfy their inbred urges and desires. If you fail to provide these things, you can fully expect the dog to become neurotic, aggressive, destructive and all the other bad traits that you can associate with dogs. It’s your fault. Not theirs. You are mentally and physically destroying the animal by taking it into your home and then failing to provide more than food, water and shelter. Children don’t become productive members of society without training and attention, so why would we expect dogs to be vastly different?
So don’t get a dog unless you are prepared to socialize it, exercise it, give it affection and deal with the expense of your time, money, love and effort. You are being selfish and cruel by failing to meet the dog’s social and mental needs. If you are a Christian, I would argue that God expects you to treat your animal like a responsibility and not a toy if you are going to be a good steward of the blessings He has put into your life. That said, if you do want to get a dog, please go to a local shelter or rescue and not to the pet store. There are lots of awesome animals that need a home and that puppy in the store is going to end up with someone anyways.
