pseudo-parenthood

as dog owners my wife and i make every effort to abstain from the cheesy language of calling our dog "our baby," referring to each other as "mommy" and "daddy," etc. so far we've been successful, but it's hard to avoid such connections when you go to puppy training class. last night my wife and i were at one such event. there we sat on the floor indian-style (is that term still pc?) with our dog running around playing with other dogs talking to the young couples who own those dogs about all the travails of raising a puppy. there was the look of disdain on the owners whose dogs were out of control, and the envy of those owners whose dogs would probably have pulled every last one of us out of the building in case of a fire...and then dressed our wounds. yeah, there's no doubt that owning a puppy is nothing like parenting, but it's hard to ignore the similarities.