Meet the Newest Member of the Family

In recent months, my kids pushed and pushed for us to get a dog.

I pushed back.

It’s not that I have any objection to dogs. My three brothers and I grew up with a wire-haired terrier – Peanuts – that we considered a family member.

But my daughter, Hannah, is away now at college. My 13-year-old son, David, is in school most of the day and has sports afterward. My wife, Karen, is generally out running errands, visiting friends or stimulating the economy.

So who would be left working at home with the responsibility of taking the dog out again and again, day after day, month after month?

Moi.

I wasn’t about to sign up for it.

David, however, is nothing if not persistent.

“Dad,” he protested, “having a dog is just part of boyhood. Who wants to grow up without a dog?”

Hmm. I didn’t like the idea of my son having some kind of second-rate boyhood. Especially if I were somehow responsible.

David planted himself in front of me and looked into my eyes. “Dad, I really, really, really want a dog.”

I told him I’d think about it.

What I really wanted was time. Enough time for the whole idea to fade away.

It didn’t happen. David persisted.

After a few weeks, I started reluctantly imagining what kind of dog we might get. I decided I’d want a good-looking, energetic puppy: a golden retriever, black Lab or Irish setter.

David balked. Those weren’t the kinds of dogs he had in mind.

He wanted something smaller. And “snugglier.”

Two weeks ago, a friend and neighbor picked David up for school. In the car with her was a dog from the SPCA that she was temporarily fostering.

It was a pug. Her name was “Honey.”

She was “at least 10 years old,” blind in one eye, with a peculiar smell, a bad limp and an itching problem that caused her to chew her legs frequently. Only later would I learn that she was not entirely continent either.

When David learned the dog was up for adoption, he began furiously texting his mom and me photos with urgent messages attached.

When he got home that afternoon, he was still in overdrive. “Can we get her, Dad? Please? She is so soft and sweet.”

I told him that he was being impulsive: that if we were going to get a dog, we needed to take our time, look around and make 100% sure that we were getting exactly the dog we wanted.

“Dad,” he said. “This is that dog.”

“That isn’t possible,” I told him. “It’s just the first dog to come along. Be patient.”

“Dad,” he said. “Look at me. This… is… the… one.”

After a few days of intense family debate, we agreed to take Honey in – but only for 48 hours. Given the dog’s advanced age and obvious problems, I was certain that this brief trial would be all we’d need to realize she was clearly not the dog for us.

Things started looking bad for my team almost immediately.

For starters, the dog’s temperament is unbelievably sweet. She doesn’t yap. She’s too old to jump up and down. She doesn’t shed (much). And she loves companionship, preferring to curl up next to whomever is in the room.

The 48-hour trial ended with a compromise to keep her for another 48 hours. I warned everyone that she would almost certainly be going back after that.

But the opposition had other plans. Karen got the vet to write a prescription to stop the itching. David scrubbed the dog to within an inch of her life – something she clearly enjoyed – and got rid of the smell.

Excuses were running low. “Honey-Dog” – I could not call her “Honey” – was stealing everyone’s heart. (Hannah gave her the thumbs up too.)

Yet I still wasn’t sold. I reminded Karen that if we were going to get a dog, it just didn’t make any sense to get an old, feeble, half-blind, semi-lame, not entirely housebroken one.

Just then, David – who had been snuggling her on the couch – looked up and said, “Dad, isn’t she perfect?”

You know, when you think about it, love never really does make sense.

So meet the newest member of the family: “Honey-Dog” Green.

Carpe Diem,

Alex