A Pet for Christmas?

You've been hearing it for weeks now. "Please, Daddy, please. Can I have a puppy? That's all I want for Christmas." And every time you go to the mall, the first place your child wants to visit is the pet store. You have to admit, the puppies are cute. So you start to soften a little toward the idea of Santa bringing one home on Christmas Eve.

But hold up now, buster. Old Mama Scrooge is telling you up front that she will not take care of the pup. If, and she stresses if, you get that pup, he is yours and Junior's responsibility. Just keep that in the back of your mind. Puppies are a lot of work. They are like kids. They have to be fed and water, and house trained. They have to be walked and played with. They need love and attention.

That said, Mama goes off to do her own shopping leaving the two of you staring wistfully at the little puppies. You start thinking about how much you wanted a pup when you were your son's age. Your Dad had said no. And that was the end of that. Until the stray dog had shown up a month later. You hid it and fed it for several weeks before Dad found out about it. Then he couldn't run it off. It would just lay down and roll over. After a while, you would come out and catch him throwing a stick for it. And soon, it just became part of the family. You had that dog for eight years. Eight years of running, jumping, catching, and just plain ole loving. Eight years of a best friend who would always listen and never criticize. Eight of the best years of your life.

So you decide to have a serious talk with your son about how much responsibility a dog is. He needs to know that it will be his place to feed and water the pup. He will have to take it for walks and play with it. Even if he doesn't feel like it, the pup has to be taken care of. Even on cold and wet days, he can't forget the pup.

Pets help our children learn responsibility. Or not. That depends a lot on you as the parent. Start off by making sure your child is the pup's caregiver. Even if it is something that you have to help with, such as teaching it to go out to use the bathroom. If you have to go out, your child should go out too. Let him use his allowance to buy dog food and dog toys. That's part of the responsibility. That's part of the agreement of taking care of the pup.

Of course you will get all the promises and guarantees. Of course he will probably not keep all of them. And you and Mom will probably end up caring for the pup as it grows. But you know that you will also share in that pup's affections and happiness. Because a small little pup has the ability to do that. Not only will it bring love and happiness to the person receiving it, the person giving it will also experience that same love and happiness.