Raising a Puppy, Practice for Children?

A puppy is wonderful addition to a family. It's a joyous occasion usually celebrated with photographs and lots of cheerful smiles and laughter. The birth of a child is the same. Now I am not saying that the two can even compare to one another in terms of the magnitude of the life changing factors and excitement, but it is interesting to consider.

Most puppies are like babies, they require a lot of training as to what not to do or touch and learning what "no" or "stop" means. I adopted an adorable puppy several months ago and since then have realized that he requires nearly as much attention as does an infant. Perhaps my dog is odd, that is always a possibility, but assuming he's not and most puppies act this way, I would say it's relatively close to the care needed for a child in terms of time, energy, and love. No, I don't have to nurse him, but there are a lot of other things that have to be done which lead me to the conclusion that raising a puppy is good training for parenting a child.

For instance, my puppy wakes me up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. That's right, he comes over and pats me on the arm or shoulder when he has to go to the bathroom. Once in a while he's just whine and I know that means he has to go potty. So, I get up, take him downstairs and we go outside so he can do his business. He has nightmares and needs to be comforted. Again, absolutely true. It happened the other night in fact. He woke up in the middle of the night whining. My husband took him out to go potty and then back upstairs. He fell asleep for about fifteen minutes and then awoke again whining. Now, I knew he didn't have to go to the bathroom again. He sat up on the bed and looked at me, scared. So what did I do? I took him in my arms, stroked him and sang him a lullaby. "Rock a bye, puppy" to be exact. He fell asleep during my song. It was so sweet.