My other two children.....

We have 2 dogs a golden retriever, Rocky and  chocolate lab, Ruby. I may complain about them but I would be upset if something happened to either one of them. They are a part of the family and have been around  longer then the kids. My husband and I have decided that in the future we will never have 2 dogs at the same time again. It is simply too expensive.

I will say that I hate the fact that there is dog hair everywhere and no amount of vacuuming makes it disappear for very long. I do love the fact that they clean up the trail of crumbs my kids leave so I guess it is a catch 22, clean up crumbs or dog hair! We have a great security system they bark at everything, which is also not so great when they go nuts not five minutes after the kids have finally gone to bed at night.

We have a fenced backyard, and the dogs pretty much have the run of the house. We pretty much let them go where they want. Yes they sleep on furniture but they are not allowed on our bed and do not really go in the kids rooms. I guess you could say they are spoiled.

The kids love them. Hailey has to give each one of them a treat every night before she goes to bed and then she has to pet them and tell them good night. Ryan is starting to acknowledge them too. One of the few words he says is dog. We are really lucky that both dogs are so good with the kids and do not give bother any of the kids stuff.

I cannot understand why some people have dogs though. There are several people in my neighborhood who have dogs that live in the garage. They are ever outside ever that I see. It gets hot where I live. I can not imagine leaving my dogs in a garage all day. I have seen the garage door open and the floor in there is covered in dog poop and pee. I guess they hose it off every once in a while but no dog should have to live like that. I never see them walk their dogs and when we walk buy I can tell that the barks are coming from the garage so I assume they do not go in the house.

So it begs the question why have a dog if it is not going to be part of the family? I can see having an outside dog on a farm or on a large piece of land, but I still cannot see the point of having one if you are not going to give it any attention.