In about a month, I will have had my dog Rosie for a WHOLE YEAR. In less than 365 days (honestly, in less than a week), Rosie became my daughter, my best friend, and someone I would literally take a bullet for. I cannot explain just how much I love my dog. I told my friend after about a month of owning Rosie that I have never loved anything more in my entire life. This might sound dramatic, but other dog parents (and human parents) out there know exactly what I’m saying.
1. Cleaning up vomit is no-biggie.
Everyone thinks they’d be a great dog owner, but can you deal with the barf? If yes, can you deal with being barfed on by your dog, in bed, at 3 am? Because that happened to me this week. And no, you can’t get mad, you can’t yell at your dog. It’s annoying, but what were they supposed to do? Not throw up? Bodies don’t exactly work like that. Besides, after owning a dog for a while, barf becomes no big deal. I live about two hours away from school, and while Rosie loves car rides, she still throws up. Every. Single. Time. At first, it slowed my car ride by a good 30 to 40 minutes, but now I can pull over, clean, and get back on the road in less than 10 minutes. And like I said, Rosie literally barfed on me in my sleep and I scooped it up in a solo cup, threw it away, Lysoled the spot on my sheets and went back to bed (Don’t worry, I cleaned my sheets in the morning). Freaking out about vomit? Can’t relate.
2. There is a right and wrong place to pee.
Listen, do you like public bathrooms? Do you enjoy peeing in an unfamiliar toilet? No, you don’t (And if you do, I don’t want your views on this page because that’s disgusting and I don’t need that negative energy near me). Rosie feels the same way. She doesn’t like unfamiliar toilets either. Dogs love routine and part of that routine is peeing at the same place on their walking route every morning. For Rosie, it’s the lawn of the Trombone House (don’t @ me, I live in band land). Luckily for us, the Bones are very nice and have never been grossed out or mad that my dog only likes to use the bathroom on their lawn. They understand that my girl is picky about her pee-places. Where’s the wrong place to pee? According to Rosie, it’s the fenced off area of my backyard that my dad and brother created specifically for her to pee in. But it’s fine… I’m not petty (or pee-ty?) about it…
3. Dinner is the most annoying time of the day.
Like I said, dogs like routine. Part of that routine is their dinner time, which Rosie has memorized. 6PM is when Rosie usually eats dinner and starting at 5:30, I hear the whining. She whines and cries and makes weird yawning noises and dramatically huffs and makes every weird noise you could think of. Rosie is a natural drama queen (love her!) but WOW, dinner time is the worst. She literally just sits, stares, and screams at me until I feed her. Maybe only owners of bad dogs get this one… dogs with manners? Still can’t relate.
4. You are a guest in your own bed.
If you allow your dog to sleep in bed with you, you know that the second they get up there, it is no longer your bed. You sacrificed that bed to them. In return, they act as a personal space heater that will also cuddle you if needed. It’s 60% adorable, 40% annoying. Dogs don’t really understand that you can’t just sprawl diagonally across the bed, fully outstretched. They’re also surprisingly good at changing the effect gravity has on their body. When they want pets and snuggles, they’re light and will jump right into your arms… but when they’re asleep in your (i.e. their) bed and you try to push them to the side, they suddenly weigh 700 pounds. My 27-pound beagle/dachshund, who is pretty easy to push around, becomes a sack of bricks the second I try to move her so I can get in bed. The bed is probably the biggest sacrifice one makes in dog ownership, because while sleeping with your dog is relaxing, comforting, and warm, you also get pushed off your bed like that time you had to share a bed with an aggressive dreamer on your high school band trip.
5. You can’t go anywhere without thinking about your dog.
Whether it’s positive or negative, I’m always thinking about Rosie. My anxiety is always telling me that my house has spontaneously burst into flames and that she’s on fire, which is largely the reason I rarely go out or study in the library. On the happier side of it, I can’t see a dog on a sidewalk without thinking about how my dog is cuter. I can’t see a baby without thinking that my dog is cuter. I can’t see a dog toy at the store without wanting to buy it, I can’t stop telling everyone to follow my dog on instagram (@lil_girl_rosie), and I can’t hear a lecture in Genetics about dog breeding without compulsively tweeting about my dog (or worse, emailing my professor a picture). It’s gotten to the point where I wrote an essay in German class about my dog when I was supposed to write a biography about someone famous (I still got an A though because I’ve talked about Rosie enough that my professor loves her). I’m always thinking and/or talking about Rosie, and I’m very lucky that my friends haven’t gotten sick of me yet.
6. Dog hair is EVERYWHERE AT ALL TIMES.
Everything I own is covered in dog hair. Every corner of my room is hairy, no matter how many times I sweep. My clothes have dog hair woven into them, as do my sheets. I’ve found dog hair in my pencil bag, on my homework, on my face during the middle of the day, on the bottom of all of my socks, in the sink, in the toilet, in my cup, on my plate, in my mouth, on my pillow, in the crevices of my laptop keyboard, in my trumpet case, on my trumpet, in my phone case, in my phone charging port, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. It’s EVERYWHERE and it won’t go away dispite my many attempts at brushing, lint rolling, sweeping, and vacuuming. This is just my life now, perpetually covered in hair that is not mine.
All of this may have sounded like I was complaining, but I’m really not. Like I said, I love Rosie more than anything else in the entire world. The fact that I have a dog in the first place is something I’m grateful for. That being said, there are universal truths of dog ownership and these only skim the surface of the dog food barrel. The biggest truth of all is the most important: every dog owner believes that their dog is cuter than every other dog on Earth and That. Is. True.
Wanna set up a playdate between our dogs? Hit me up at 3 am, I’m probably awake with barf in my bed.