First Pets: Wild Thing
Written By Jane Hammerslough
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A Venus flytrap? A triops? A hissing cockroach? One mother thought they might make her kids' hearts sing. But a puppy would make everything groovy.
I was on the kitchen floor, sopping up spilled milk and Cheerios with a paper towel, when Zach, my 4-year-old, launched the latest attack in his campaign for a puppy. He looked balefully into his cereal bowl and asked, "Why do you hate animals so much?"Over the previous three months, he and his older brother, Phin, had stopped strangers with dogs, pulled me into pet shops, and made many passionate promises that they would care for a puppy perfectly all by themselves.
"I don't hate animals," I said. It was the idea of having a puppy — another family member that needed to be fed, walked, and house-trained — that I couldn't stand. From the chewing of shoes to the accidents on the carpet, they're high-maintenance, and for what? As a child I'd had an arthritic, slobbery basset hound that didn't like kids and a crotch-sniffng Belgian sheepdog that snapped. And they both came into our family as grouchy, but housebroken, adults.
"No puppies. It's not happening," I said briskly. But to prove I wasn't an animal hater, I offered up suggestions for a different pet. After all, people had pets other than dogs, didn't they? "We'll find something easy to care for," I chirped enthusiastically. "And I bet it will be even better than any old dog."
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