From The Desk Of Muppet 

Choosing A Dog

I overheard a conversation the other day that inspired me to pick this topic. Momma was talking to somebody on the phone and they wanted to get a puppy. When she was asking them why they wanted a dog and what kind of lifestyle they had the person seemed a bit offended that Momma would ask all these questions.

Turns out this person wanted to get a dog, because they felt that having a dog would inspire them to “Get off the couch and go for a walk”. Momma tried to explain to this person that was a lot of pressure to put on a dog, to make it responsible for changing your lifestyle. They said “Yeah, but if I had a dog, I would have to take it for a walk”. All the truth that Momma tried to offer this person, they could not be dissuaded. They had made a New Year’s resolution to get fit & their newly adopted dog was going to make that happen.

You see, the fact is that if you don’t walk regularly now, chances are that you won’t have any sort of lifestyle epiphany because you get a dog. What will likely happen is that you will walk the dog faithfully for a while, then daily walks will become less frequent and then to the point of non existent. The dog will still want his walks, become restless and bored, start wrecking your stuff and his behaviour will become nervous, edgy and uncontrollable. He will become disobedient and when you do take him out you will have no control over him and he won’t come when he’s called. You’ll become resentful & Fido will end up in a Shelter.

We all hear stories about how dogs have changed people’s lives and brought them to new heights of greatness, but just because it happened for that person doesn’t mean it will happen for you. Also, these stories are extremely rare given the number of dogs there are in the world.

The moral of the story here? Be honest about your lifestyle as it is now, not the way you want it to be in the future and get a dog that suits your current lifestyle. Just as you shouldn’t get a Border Collie if you live a quiet life with occasional walking, you shouldn’t get a Dachshund if you are a marathon runner.

So what happened to the person Momma was talking to on the phone? Well, we do not know. But we do know that they won’t be getting a dog from our house.

PS: Bringing a dog into your home is a huge undertaking and there are many things to consider. We will have other blog posts on how to choose a dog in the near future.