Why You Need a Dog In Your Life

It’s no secret that I like dogs. In fact, I sort of try to pretend I don’t like them as much as I do, in a futile attempt to separate myself from the really crazy folks.

My family and friends tolerate the obsession. They just try to avoid bringing up the topic of dogs around me because they know I will talk their ears off for the next hour and a half about stuff they don’t give a rat’s ass about.

They’re great people.

But it’s not that I’m passionate about dogs because they’re cute. (Most days, I actually find cats cuter). A running joke within my circle is that I think a dog can fix everything. Fat and unhealthy? Get a dog. Kids got eczema? Get a dog. Depressed? Dog! Can’t find love? Fuck romance, dogs are so much better.

It’s not really a joke to me, though. I do happen to think that dogs have a lot to contribute to the human experience. I think that if you allow yourself to fall in love with a dog, you are opening the door to a world where words like joy, unconditional love, loyalty, devotion, and adventure can have meaning. I don’t mean that these things can’t exist without a dog. But having one in your life does make seeing them a lot easier.

Daily benefits to having a dog:

• They are better at getting you fit than a gym membership. Depending on the dog and the gym, the monthly cost could be less or more, but the important thing is that if you don’t take the dog for a walk, the dog will eat your couch.
• You develop healthy sleeping habits, because you can’t sleep in–you have to get up early or you will wake up to dog piss and crap.
• Less stress. Your dog is more pleasant to be around with than most people.

The long-term benefits, though, are even better.

Unconditional love is good for people. But it’s also selfish to ask for it from someone. I think that a lot of relationships become unhealthy because people don’t have the maturity to understand the give and take nature of love. They mostly want the feeling of being loved. A lot of people do the bare minimum and then patiently wait for their love to be returned in a way they expect, which usually leads to disaster and broken hearts and homes.

This is where the dog comes in. Dogs are relationships on ez-mode. Everything you give to a dog, they give back 100%, even more. Do the minimum to keep it alive and it’s yours forever. I mean, you really should do more, but that’s about all it requires to have a friend who would listen to your every bitch and complaint, who will always be happy to see you, and who is always up for whatever you decide to do that day. The safest, surest way to be somebody’s sun-and-stars is to have a dog.

And then what? How is being involved in this sort of narcissistic love actually good for someone? Doesn’t it teach people to have unrealistic expectations about love, instead?

Well, it could do that, if you’re the sort of heartless asshole who decides to get rid of your dog around the time it stops being cute.

But if you do more, like I said…if you hang on a little longer (around Year 2 for those who started out with puppies) and do your best to spend as much time with your dog as you can, something changes. You fall into a rhythm. The friendship becomes a little bit truer, the “idea” slowly being replaced by reality…that this, here, this dog, is yours, just as much as you are his. You begin to know each other’s habits, like the way he likes to snuffle against your neck if you give him affection or the way you need to have your coffee first before you take him for a walk. You see her respond to you in a way that makes you think, this isn’t just because I feed her, especially when she reacts to your voice from a distance like her whole body is suddenly electrified.

You start to learn that relationships get better the more you put into them. Life is good between years 2-7. Every day is an adventure with your best friend, and you don’t ever want it to end. But then you wake up one day and see the first white hair on your friend’s muzzle, and you realize that there is no outrunning life.

The day you realize your friend is getting old is when shit gets real. You can put off the nagging thought that you might someday lose him, but it will return every time something gives. The white hairs increase. Her breath starts to stink. He forgets commands. Her eyesight fails. Housebreaking becomes an issue, and suddenly, you have to carry him everywhere because he can’t walk anymore. You do everything to make her every day comfortable; if you are lucky, she will pass on in her sleep. If you are not, you will have to walk or carry him to the end of the line, which is going to be the hardest thing you will ever have to do but which you will do anyway because your friend deserves nothing less.

Now do you understand?

Loving a dog is like the greatest bait and switch ever. It draws you in with all these promises of hugs and happiness and sunny days, and then it leaves you just a little bit broken. Better, but broken. None of us are supposed to pass through life unscathed.

Then, if you’ve learned the lesson well, you get up one day and you try again, as you should. And in the meantime, you start to look at your other relationships in a different light…you start to understand the transient quality of life, a thing that is hard to remember when you are with living, breathing people who don’t seem to change all that much every year. You appreciate them more, because you are no longer seeking to feel loved so much as you want to give love. And then, when you give it a chance, you fall into a rhythm with them, too…only here, in theory, you get a lot more breathing room. People live so much longer.

If you want to feel more human, get a dog and love it.