I love my dog, I really do. He has become like another child in my life.
I say fourth, because even though he came first (our stereotypical parental test run… Mutt-ernity if you will), as each of our children came along, as is the natural order of things, our dog shifted down a rung in the pecking order.
So. Without further ado, I cordially introduce you to Gibson the wonder dog.
Much loved, 6 year old serial pest. Wardrobe: classic minimalism. Fur coat daily. Even in summer. Colour: mushroom velour. Temperament: maximum energy or asleep. Bred for: hunting bears. Intent on continuing this legacy by protecting his family from beloved childhood teddy bears.
Scroll through the gallery to see Liv’s cute dog (post continues after gallery):
As the years have come and gone, it’s become increasingly clear that our Weimaraner is indeed more like our fourth (and most demanding) child than our first pet. Why, pray tell?
1. Poo
OK, so it’s an obvious one. But both kids and dogs come with poo attached. Well maybe not atta… Actually yes, sometimes attached. As you can imagine, having twins brought with it a never ending stream of pooey nappies. As a mother, you are (mostly) immune to the nasal cavity clearing, core penetrating odour of your own child’s excrement.
It’s like a small kindness afforded to you by Mother Nature. I’m not entirely sure the same can be said for your dogs outgoings. But, I wouldn’t know… Dog poo disposal is my husband’s field of expertise.Much like emptying the rubbish, taking the bins out, bringing aforementioned bins in, cleaning the gutters, spider and/or other insect removal…and so on and so forth. Contractual agreement.
But, stench aside, as with your children, it’s your responsibility to clean up after your dog. In fact you probably have to do it more than you do for your kids. And it never ends. Children learn to use the toilet. As a dog owner you get the privilege of picking up your dogs poo for the tenure of his natural life. So who’s last in the pecking order again.
2. Trail of destruction
You know the drill. 7am – house tidy. 7:03am – house annihilated. Toys you’re sure you’ve never even seen before litter the floor. Crumbs of unknown origin everywhere. Apple cores left in genius hiding places to stumble upon at a later date, usually when you least expect it. Unidentifiable green substance smeared across floor. Highly valued leaf collection proudly displayed on the kitchen table, atop breakfast remnants.
And that’s just the dog. Ha. Not really. In all seriousness, Gibson the wonder dog does have a similar uncanny knack for leaving a trail of destruction in his wake. Left to his own devices, he can destroy the undestroyable, triumphantly find prized possessions we thought were permanently lost and then hide them again.
We can return home after a ten minute trip to the supermarket to a deck full of small items and barely recognisable toys, retrieved from god knows where, all systematically chewed until they hardly resemble their former selves. Items we didn’t even know were THERE. Because, like our kids, Gibson doesn’t want the toys put out for him to enjoy. Too obvious. Rather, he opts for obscure items we’d prefer he didn’t have but that he somehow manages to find.
3. Unnatural ability to find chocolate
It became clear that life as I knew it was never going to be the same the very first time I bent down to talk to my small daughter straight after I’d snuck a tim tam, and she’d looked at me suspiciously and said “I smell…. Chocolate”. This remarkable ability to root out the smallest whiff of even just a remnant of chocolate on someone’s breath exists in both my children, and probably our baby too, we just don’t know it yet.
