While We're Still on Animals...

Another thing I hate: people who have dogs instead of kids, then talk up their dogs AS THOUGH they were children.

It's not that I hate dog people...generally speaking. So long as you train your animal, scoop up its crap from my stretch of sidewalk/lawn/driveway, keep it on a leash, and make sure you regularly vacuum up its hair so that when I sit on your couch, my black slacks don't end up shaggy, dog people are just fine. I like them better than cat people, actually; they pay attention to me, whereas cat people are busy worshiping their cats.

But I HATE dog people who think that raising a pooch is akin to raising a child.

WRONG!!!

Scooping dog crap is NOT like changing your child's diapers. With a child, you're teaching them to want to be clean. You're wiping thick green soy poo from a red, raw tushy at 2 in the morning...every morning for weeks on end. You get peed on, pooped on, often have to change clothes and wipe floppy feet that found their way into the aforementioned poo, and just generally sacrificing for the sake of your progeny.

Dumping kibble into a bowl and refreshing water once a day - never, if you have one of those lazy-ass self-refreshing water bowls - is NOT like feeding a child. Let's look beyond bottles and burping for a moment, and consider your average 6 year-old who prefers Mac 'N' Cheese to veggies. They still need veggies. And those veggies need to be bought...and cooked...and eaten. And you, as a parent, are responsible for all of the above, including any ensuing tantrum AND the consistency to insist time and time again until they either develop a taste for veggies or learn to stir the veggies into their Mac 'N' Cheese so they don't notice them as much. And kids eat CONSTANTLY...which you also must monitor. Too much food or too much of the wrong types of foods = FAT kids with health problems. If they're NOT eating constantly, you have to worry JUST as much about the sake of their health.

Training a dog to sit, lie down, not jump on people, and restrain their barking is NOT like teaching a child to speak/read/think/behave appropriately to the situation/socialize with everyone from a newborn on up to a geriatric. The contrast there is so obvious when those two things are juxtaposed that I feel no need to elaborate. Point is, they're worlds apart.

If you have a dog instead of children, fine. Enjoy your ANIMAL. That said, don't you DARE try to tell me that having a dog is just as difficult as raising your own flesh and blood, or that you understand the pain that I endure attempting to teach my unfocused child to read because you just taught your dog a new trick. Try, and I may just introduce your face to my fist.

ANIMAL, not CHILD. Listen up, Dog People...and shut up.