My Sister and I always get a good chuckle when we pass a billboard with this saying on it: “Pets are children too”. We can never remember what the billboard is for, but it’s on one of the freeways traveling south from Las Vegas to Los Angeles.
Anyway, no matter how often we see this billboard, we ALWAYS have to philosophize about it. Do they really think people are going to believe that pets are our offspring? Do they expect people to rationally believe that their pets bring about the same joy, stresses and obligations that having children do? Do they want people to adopt pets and stop having kids? Are they saying that our children are animals? OK, that’s not such a stretch! But ya, I get it. I realize that some people love their pets like they’re their children, but they aren’t. Right?
My Sister is maybe the biggest animal lover I know. She recently found this 2 week old kitten in a bush at 7-11. It had an eyeball sticking out of its skull, like literally hanging out, and she has spent hundreds of dollars nursing this little thing back to health. She cries when Will Smith has to kill his dog in I Am Legend. And her dog, Brando, is the smartest, most spoiled dog in the entire world. He definitely knows more tricks than my kid. But even my Sister realizes that pets are not children too.
My Husband and I have two shih tzus, Lola and Rico. We got our little fur babies almost 6 years ago and at one point they were truly like our children. And then I got pregnant. Insert our first {real} child and everything changed for our four legged kids. They went from being like our children to just plain old, dirty dogs. Looking back, Lola and Rico definitely have had a rough year adjusting to their new, lower status on the totem pole. However, over the last few months, an interesting thing has taken place: they have formed a new alliance in our household. With Alina! She feeds them {from the heights of her high chair}, throws Rico’s toys for him to fetch, and everyday they become more comfortable giving each other “abrazos”. Watching Alina grow to love our little doggies has certainly given me a new level of appreciation for them. Lola and Rico are kind, loving and silly pups, and I am happy to call them our…children?
Here are some pictures of Alina with her fur family over the past year…
** I hope it goes without saying that even domesticated pets are still Unpredictable animals. Please do NOT leave children unsupervised with your pets. **
