I had the strangest dream the other night.  It involved a palmetto bug. This is a palmetto bug:

I never knew what a palmetto bug was until I moved to the south.  Officially they are in the cockroach family but calling them that makes them seem even creepier to me. Unlike common cockroaches they don’t travel in gazillions. You might find one in your house and one a few days later but not hoards of them. (Not even if you shut the lights off really fast.)  I do not like these critters. Not at all. I admit to killing them when I see them in my house.  (I might consider catching them and putting them outside but they are too hard to catch.)

In my dream however the palmetto bug followed my commands much as my dogs do and afterward it crawled up onto my cheekbone and sat happily much as Java sits on my shoulder. And in the dream it was ok. In the dream the bug was smart and friendly and was apparently part of my pack.

Maybe I had this dream as a result of the thoughts I’d been having about PETA. I am very much in opposition to PETA even though I think 90% of what they do is good. My big opposition is because I don’t even want to contemplate a world or a life with no pets and that is what PETA would have.  Perhaps in such a world I would learn to be friends with the cockroaches. I’m not looking forward to that and even though they are God’s creatures, I’ll be killing them when they come in my house.  I’d like to be more evolved but I’m sorry. I’m not there yet.

Please note:  There is a big difference between animal rights and animal welfare. I am an animal welfare advocate.

In your consideration of what kind of dog to get this is a big choice. There are great benefits and advantages on either side of this choice.

There is nothing cuter than a puppy and cuteness does a lot, it also costs a lot in training and energy. Are you prepared to train a puppy to be a well rounded dog? Do you even know what training is involved beyond housebreaking? Do you have the time for a puppy? Some rescues won’t allow people with full time jobs to adopt a puppy because housebreaking and training can be really difficult for people who have busy lives outside of their homes. Many people with full time jobs have raised puppies but it really can be a handful. If you really want a dog but have a busy life a mellow adult dog without major behavior problems might be waiting for you at your local shelter.

Adult dogs can come with built in problems, existing bad habits that need to be broken, but they don’t always. Don’t take the idea of “bad habits” as one issue. Bad habits include everything from major aggression to a dog who jumps up on you to welcome you home. Jumping up is a bad habit (and one of the most common ones) that you can break. Aggression is a whole different story. Adult dogs are available for a wide variety of reasons besides bad behavior. The saddest to me are from owners who have died or gotten too old to care for the dogs. There are also families who must relocate and cannot take the dog with them. Consider an older dog or a pair of dogs who have always lived together. These have a harder time finding homes and there are good reasons to take them. I think the perfect age for a dog is 5. At that age they have grown into the best dog they will be. This doesn’t mean they can’t learn more. Then can. (Dogs learn all during their lives.) It means their personality has matured and mellowed. For a small dog, 5 is still a young age. While dogs’ life spans are never long enough a 5 year old dog still has most of his dog left in him.

Don’t think that adopting an adult dog will end up costing you more in medical bills than adopting a young one. In fact, the opposite may be true. By waiting until a dog is an adult you will be able to bypass all puppy issues and many of the congenital issues such as hip dysplasia and luxating patellas, which are most likely apparent by the time the dog has reached adulthood.

Many people think they need to get a puppy in order to bond with the dog the way they want to. This is just not the case. Those who have rescued dogs often believe that shelter dogs know how lucky they are when they have been well adopted and show gratitude accordingly. I’m not sure if this is true but I do know that the dog who made me into a “dog person” was an adult when I met and fell in love with him.

If you take your time (and it usually isn’t much time) you will be able to find the perfect adult dog for you. There are millions of homeless pets, a very sad state of affairs. You will fall in love with one of them and life will change for both of you.

My next article will help you find the right dog for your household.

A widely circulated old wives tale says that one year for a dog is equal to seven human years.  There are many references to this in our culture in movies, book titles, comedy routines and in off-handed comments.  These days we have people researching a lot about dogs because dogs have become big business and people like you and me  are willing to spend a lot of money to keep our dogs healthy (and on other silly stuff but that’s a different topic).

Recently it is being shown that the seven year equivalent is off by quite a bit but recent researchers have not come up with a nice neat replacement for the number 7.  In general it is believed that the first two years of a dog’s life are the equivalent of much more than seven years each. After all, dogs can reproduce at a year old. It’s thought now that a one year old dog is approximately the age of a 15 year old male, two years is equal to 24 years and then each year equals from 4 (for small breed dogs who live longer) to 7 years (for large breeds).  Therefore a 10 year old lap dog would be roughly 56 whereas a 10 year old St. Bernard would be more similar to a 78 year old person.

Life span expectancy varies among breeds even of the same size. An example is a Doberman which is a bigger dog but has a life expectancy of about 15 as opposed to a boxer who might be smaller but has a span of only 9 or 10 years.

Last year Panama Red and I were roughly the same age.  He was 10 and I was 57.  This year he’ll be 60 but I’ll only be 58. Looking at it this way I know these figures are way off and I really don’t want us to think of our dogs in these terms. Why? Is it because I’m in denial? Well yes but that’s only part of it.  It might be useful when considering health issue to figure a dog’s age this way but our culture makes it almost non comparable. Panama is a lot younger than I am and one reason is that he doesn’t know about age.  I don’t think he knows that he doesn’t want to chase a ball for as long as he used to because he still wants to chase it as often.  He doesn’t catch it quite as fast as he used to and doesn’t always see where it went as quickly as he used to but if he knows these things he doesn’t mind them. This is how fast Panama catches a ball. Because this is the time that Panama lives in. Now.

Fortunately Panama is a very healthy boy. Deva (who is now 13 1/2) is having a little harder time. She is very stiff but she too is very happy. I was sad for her when she stopped going to work with Ken. She no longer wants to get into the truck which used to be one of her favorite things to do. (The first word we had to spell in front of her was r-i-d-e the second was s-t-o-r-e.) She is not sad about it and as the dogs always have, they are teaching me a new way to look at things. Deva isn’t deprived of going in the truck. She has grown into another kind of life now that doesn’t include trucks and she does not “miss” it.

Dog owners often wonder what dogs are thinking but we don’t have to wonder if they are happy or not, we don’t have to wonder about what they like or don’t. They make these things very clear.  All of my dogs are happy with today just the way it is and they all live in the now.  I’ve had to work at that and I’m working at it still but they always help.

They don’t have any idea that it’s 2010 (or 14070) or that one year follows another.  I do so in my paradoxical human way I hope that this will be the year that you learn to live in the now and appreciate each day as your dog does.

Happy New Year!