Nov. 17: What is the hardest lesson you’ve learned from having pets?

If I have learned one thing from having pets, it’s to not sweat the small stuff.

My dog is notorious for getting into places she shouldn’t and eating things she shouldn’t. She gets into the bathroom garbage, my bedroom every bedroom and finds anything to eat and eats it. Obviously, this isn’t small to some of you. And I know if she came into contact with the wrong object, she could possibly die. However, she seems to be ‘smart’ to some extent and only really eats paper. For the past 9 years we have had Rosie (my 75 pound rott) she has eaten tissues, toilet paper, as I’m typing this she picked up a ticket to my sister’s play from last weekend, and an enormous amount of mystery items. We always get mad and yell at her. Every time something comes in front of her snout that shouldn’t. But at the end of the day, we probably didn’t need what she was munching on or we would have placed it in a safe location in the first place. She has never eaten money and she only ate hockey tickets once (my mom left them on our ottoman and she was only like 2 so it was totally our fault).

Rosie has always had a very weak stomach. When we decided to switch her dog food to a healthier brand, it took two weeks for us to do so so her stomach could adapt. Through all of her tampon and paper eating (also when my dad gives her pizza…..) she has thrown up a numerous amount of times. My dad is always the first to yell at her. It isn’t her fault she made a solar system shaped vomit line across our entire living room carpet. She was sick or ate something. When a human throws up, people comfort them, We should do the same with our other babies. Yeah, we have to spend the weekend deep cleaning our carpet but our dog is doing better and that’s all that matter honestly.

From every substance that has gone in and out of her mouth, to when she gets defensive about her food and growls, you need to stop sweating the small stuff, because in the end, none of it really matters.

Until tomorrow

Alicia

P.S. enjoy these photos of my dog because she turned 10 last week and I totally bought her a cake.