Puppy Adjustment

A Puppy and an Attitude Adjustment

By Lisa Jancarik

A new puppy has joined our household, as we decided to make a dog a feature of our kid’s childhood. Our daughter is an only child, and we thought that having a dog might help her develop empathy for others (there is some evidence that this is the case in studies of kids with dogs) and provide companionship for her. I stood to gain caretaking and training responsibilities out of this deal, which I accepted for the sake of my kid rather than any particular enthusiasm for pets. If the decision to adopt a pet sounds pretty calculated, well, that’s because it was.

I’m new to dog ownership (or “parenthood”, if you must), and taking care of a puppy who is not yet housetrained and loves to chew is essentially my full-time job now. A week into being the dog’s alpha and leader of our pack, I was starting to feel pretty bitter about the experience, honestly. As the Pittsburgh September cooled and began to yield an occasional drizzle, I started to get impatient for her to “go piddle” so I could get back inside to whatever work awaited me there. I impatiently stomped around after her, ruminating on what I thought I should have been doing instead.

I was still grimacing about our pup’s lack of goal-directed behavior one gorgeous afternoon last week when I started to seriously reconsider my attitude toward this outdoor time. It was going to be a long twelve to fifteen years of letting the dog out if I couldn’t learn to relax during these obligatory breaks in my day. That particular afternoon, I had no appointments and no reason to rush our puppy, even if I could have done so.

How different my adult mindset is from my outlook when I was a kid. Well into my teens, I was always taking in my surroundings or nursing along some daydream when I should have been paying attention to a task at hand. Has the pendulum swung the other way? How is it that I can’t think past my to-do list even when a perfect opportunity for introspection and relaxation is thrust upon me?

I forced myself to take a deep breath and shake the tension out of my shoulders. There was no point in dwelling on work I could not have right in front of me just now. While the dog picked at leaves and twigs on our yard, I began to notice the perfectly cloudless sky we Pittsburghers enjoy so rarely, together with the tinge of autumn color just beginning to touch the maples in the neighbors’ yards. Birds still sing in the trees at this time of year, and my horticulturally gifted neighbors have their hardy mums bursting in oranges, reds and yellows on porches and beside mailboxes. Really, being outside on a spectacular fall day wasn’t such a raw deal, even for a second-generation couch potato like me. Without dog responsibilities, I guarantee I would have been in the climate-controlled, incandescently lit kitchen staring at my laptop during these times. It would have been my loss.

Some other benefits are already noticeable in the past few weeks. I’ve lost eight pounds from walking the dog constantly instead of mindlessly snacking while I work on the computer. It’s hardly aerobic, but the roughly two hours total per day I now spend walking the dog at a reasonable pace replaces time I would have spent parked in front of a PDF to edit or some other sedentary chore. It’s also pretty hard to snack while juggling a leash, a cell phone, puppy kibble for training rewards, a plastic bag for poop, etc. Besides, scooping up puppy scat is a sure-fire appetite suppressant.  Yuck.

More eye-opening to me, however, is that I’ve met more neighbors—including some longtime residents—in the past three weeks than I have in the previous five years in this house. Most of them are also dog owners, and we are drawn into friendly chitchat as our dogs sniff and posture to decide who is dominant (memo to our fourteen-week-old puppy: it isn’t you). My daughter has even gotten a playdate out of my new acquaintance with our neighbors. Puppies are undoubtedly a conversation-starter: even the mail carrier loves ours. The neighbors with adult dogs laugh and reminisce about housetraining when I share recent anecdotes with them. Being able to share my frustrations with them has helped me to see the humor in it. They in turn offer me encouragement and advice for the next stages of our dog’s life. Gradually, our new acquaintances are expanding to other topics, too, like the local public schools and news.

Now a month into dog ownership (still don’t consider myself a puppy “parent”…sorry to die-hard dog-lovers), a new surprise benefit has come to light: rediscovering my music collection. I’m learning to bring David Byrne or Mark Knopfler along with me on walkies. I seldom listen to music at home because there’s too much noise and activity most of the time for me to enjoy it. Except for having to say “No!” or “Come!” periodically, I can absorb Peter Gabriel’s vocals or Sting’s poetic lyrics more than I would allow myself to do at home with my chores.

I used to dismiss the reported health benefits of dog ownership, ranging from reduced triglycerides to lower blood pressure to reduced incidence of obesity in kids. I didn’t disbelieve in health benefits of dog ownership so much as question the degree to which it mattered in overall health. It’s the sort of health news one would expect actual dog-lovers to care about more so than me. Now I begin to see possible mechanisms for these effects as my dog responsibilities force me to retool my lifestyle and mindset. She’s still a huge pain in the butt with a whole set of requirements and expenses; however, it looks like I’m starting to get benefits out of the arrangement, too.