One day my husband woke up and decided he wanted a puppy. This was the man who’d always said ‘over my dead body’. My son had gone around telling people, ‘When daddy dies, we’re going to get a dog.’ Well daddy’s not dead but he might be having a teensy-weensy midlife crisis.‘Better than a motorbike’ friends keep saying. But a motorbike doesn’t pee and chew up everything in your house. And barking is a bit like revving. I stalled for a few months but he really, really did want a dog and so now we’ve got Pippa, an eleven-week-old golden retriever. The kids are over the moon.
Perhaps Martijn was feeling nostalgic for the days of clearing up shit and vomit and being in charge of something small and helpless. Ben and Ina are 11 and 9 and, having grown up here in the Netherlands, remarkably independent and self-sufficient. Ben gets up in the morning, makes his lunch and takes himself off to school. He also makes his own way to his dance lessons three times a week. The Dutch have a saying ‘Je hebt er geen kind aan’ (literally ‘it’s not like having a child’) which can be used for many different situations but basically means ‘it’s/he’s no bother’. Very appropriate here. And Ina has just started cycling to and from school independently too. As a freelancer, it means I rarely leave the house anymore, which is quite good because when it’s not sleeting it’s hailing (this week’s heatwave aside).
Only now I’ll have to go out every two hours during the day to take the new baby for a toilet stop. It’s slightly better than changing nappies, but bagging up doggy poop isn’t much fun either. I’ve started comparing puppies and babies and here are my findings so far:
Friends of ours who got a puppy last year tipped us off that rearing dogs had evolved in the same way as rearing children. It is all positive parenting and no punishment these days. Like with the positive parenting method so popular in the Netherlands, the word ‘no’ has been banished from the carer’s vocabulary. Undesirable behaviour should be redirected into desirable behaviour, i.e. give the puppy something else to chew on. And ignore barking.
It’ll be interesting to see how well this works – ignoring bad behaviour and praising good behaviour. I get the feeling it’ll be slightly easier with a dog than with a child. There’s less at stake and it might be easier not to lose your temper. We’ll see. Martijn and Ben have already signed up for puppy school
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