Being a parent these days is kind of a lot. I recently signed my youngest up for twice-weekly swim lessons, which apparently also meant signing up for a barrage of video text messages chronicling her excruciatingly slow — though still exciting! — journey from floaties to doggy paddling. I coordinate play dates, prepare multiple dinners for my picky eater. I carpool to the good day care two towns over.
My kids? Oh, my kids are in elementary school. This is all for my dog.
Dog parenting has gotten out of control. Is what I said to myself eight months ago. That’s when I started receiving unsolicited advice about our new puppy, Sally. We had to try the human-grade, shipped-to-your-door dog food, several friends said, with such fervor that I started to wonder whether it was a multilevel marketing scheme. Next came the inevitable queries about our academic plans. Were we sending her to canine boarding school for a stretch? Did we know about the van (dog school bus) that ferried suburban pets to a nature preserve an hour north on weekdays?
For someone like me, who considers judging others to be a top hobby, these conversations provided superb fodder. Who would pay for this stuff? I scoffed to my husband, less question than statement. Our prior dog, a beloved golden doodle who had lived until 13, had spent her early years chilling in our New York City apartment while we went to work each day. There, she was happy, because she was a dog, not a preschooler gunning for admission to Dalton. We took her for a walk each evening, we snuggled on the couch. I never got the sense she wanted more out of life.
Parenthood makes hypocrites of us all. I look back at the version of myself that was morally opposed to doggy day care the same way I look at new parents who insist their babies will never be exposed to screen time or processed carbs. Because the thing about kids is, they are themselves. They are not us; they are not our theories or our hopes and dreams. Our task is to parent the kids we get. Same goes for puppies.
My puppy is exceedingly cute, which I sometimes worry is part of the problem. She has a fleecy, caramel-colored coat, soft, floppy ears and a very healthy sense of self-esteem. She’s an Australian labradoodle, which I had originally taken to mean doodle with added international flair. In reality, it means she’s part Australian shepherd, with ten times the energy of our last dog and an intrinsic need to herd.
She tried to herd my son and daughter into a corner of the backyard. She tried to herd our neighbor on his morning jog, barking fiercely all the while. I got the sense she desperately wanted to make friends but just came on too strong, a predicament to which I could relate. I got the sense she could run for miles without ever tiring, a predicament to which I could not relate. She needed a job, or to train for a half marathon.
“Maybe we should get her some sheep,” my son suggested.
Compared to acquiring farm animals, a dog school bus was starting to sound reasonable. I sent her off for a few $30 play sessions, where according to the dog trainer, she herded her peers out of the van. This felt like progress.
Then she peed on my bed, chewed two tubes of ChapStick and ate the right eye out of my daughter’s stuffed bunny.
I made a list of friends with dogs, determined to coordinate my own free puppy play dates, sans white van. I would get Sally the social life she wanted and deserved, leaving her so happy and exhausted she’d never even consider eating the bunny’s left eye. At my neighbor Whitney’s house, Sally wrestled with Birdie, a brown-and-white spotted labradoodle, and dined on homemade dog treats fashioned from carved-out cucumbers, bone broth and freeze-dried raw pellets in a harvest chicken flavor.
Whitney had somehow whipped these treats up while holding down a finance job and parenting two human children, ages 4 and 7. It felt as though all millennial parenting trends had been leading to this moment: me, sitting on my friend’s couch, feeling inadequate about dog snacks. At the supermarket, I took a carton of bone broth off the shelf and placed it in my cart.
I never used it — apparently grocery store bone broth has too much sodium, so you need to order special bone broth for dogs — but I did give in and call that doggy day care two towns over. I just felt as if I couldn’t give Sally everything she needed at home. By this I mean, my friends stopped responding to my increasingly desperate text messages begging for daily dog play dates.
The Pupster Academy program promised new dog friends, whose owners were also desperate enough to pay for full-time care. The place had a heated pool, a dog treadmill and an obstacle course so robust it brought to mind equestrian show jumping. Teachers would work on Sally’s sensory skills and her core strength (via paddleboarding sessions, $8 add-on fee). I started to have visions of her becoming a therapy dog after all or a star of flyball (a competitive dog sport — look it up).
My husband buckled Sally into her dog seatbelt and drove her over. By that evening, I was pinning Sally’s Pupster Academy certificate on the wall next to my son’s second-grade math award.
Sally did not turn out to be a Pupster Academy prodigy. She still has a bark that prompts neighbors to cross the street during our morning walk. She’s made strides in the potty-training department, and she sits obediently for her teachers.
I, meanwhile, now live with the knowledge that my dog can receive a paw massage with CBD balm and hot towel ($14; she has not indulged yet) at school. I recognize that it’s absurd to spend as much time and energy and money on extracurricular dog activities as we somehow now do.
And yet, when my brother- and sister-in-law recently told us they were adopting a tiny black poodle, I couldn’t help myself.
“Congrats,” I said. “Have you thought about doggy day care?”
Rachel Feintzeig is a journalist at work on a book about staring down 40.
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