Beech Tree News Network

A couple of weeks ago, we got a new Beagle puppy.  My granddaughter, Sabria, named her Millie, after the character on Umizoomi.  Millie is going to be an outside dog.  That’s what I keep telling my family—I can’t take the heartbreak of another inside pet, losing our little Lexie just about killed me.  The outside-dog stipulation has only partially held.  Millie has wormed her way into the sunroom, because according to Sabria, “Millie is just a tiny little baby.”  How do you argue with that?

            Millie started out in a wire kennel on our front porch.  We cleaned up several accidents on the porch before she discovered the grass.  When Sabria and I took her for her new-puppy visit to the vet, he cautioned us about walking around barefoot in the front yard, because Millie tested positive for hook and round worms, and that’s how those particular worms enter the body.

            Of course, we had already walked around barefoot in the front yard, so I found myself

 GOOGLEing “how to tell if you have contracted hook or round worms and what to do about it if you have.”  Turns out, the symptoms include weight loss, anemia, malnutrition, slower cognitive growth, itchiness and irritability.  I could schedule a visit to the doctor for a prescription remedy, but the examination for worms could be a bit embarrassing.  Maybe, I’ll just go with my parents’ old stand-by—turpentine and sugar.  It’s a toss-up as to which solution would be more painful

            “Why do I do this to myself?” I find myself asking—invite trouble by bringing another dog into the mix,  I mean.  The obvious answer is every kid deserves to have a dog, my granddaughter included. 

            Our new-puppy visit, which included wormer, flea repellent and heart worm meds was right at a hundred dollars; which found my husband, Garey, asking, “What happened to the days when you just got a dog?”

            Those days are in the distant past, I could have told him.  Every affluent society, dating back to the Egyptians, has had its pampered pets.  Today, dogs have taken the place of children in many relationships.  My daughter, Nikki, and her fiancé, Thomas, do not plan on having children.  They have a Corgi and a Basenji instead.  My nephew, Jason, and his fiancé, Ingrid, feel the same.  They have a chocolate Lab.  (Jason and Ingrid have even decided not to allow any children at their wedding.)

            Pope Francis has weighed in on this trend: “Maybe that lifestyle was one that was better, more convenient, to have a little dog, two cats; and the love goes to the two cats and the little dog,” conceded Francis, but, “eventually this marriage gets to old age in solitude, with the bitterness of loneliness.  It is not fertile; it does not do what Jesus does with his church: he makes it fertile.” (Christianpost.com)

                  Pope Francis must not be a pet person.  If he were, he would never have used “convenient” and “dog” in the same sentence.  In my experience, the inconvenience involved with taking care of a dog is right up there with shaving my legs and scrubbing lime buildup off the bathtub, and I am very much a dog person.

            Dogs have to be de-wormed, de-ticked, de-fleaed, and deterred from chewing up everything within a 500 yard radius.  They have to be watered, fed, brushed, bathed, vaccinated and kenneled—if the family goes on vacation.  One of Nikki’s dogs has to have tranquilizers when he rides long distances. 

            The bottom line is this: some people are children people, and some people are dog people, and some people are both.  Thank God that God doesn’t see any of us as an inconvenience.