The Making of a Great Doggie Daddy

Happy Father's Day to all you men out there who are fathers of human children or furry children or are uncles, brothers, friends! My husband Andy has been a fantastic father of three - two dogters and one daughter. However, in all fairness, he had to grow into the Doggie Daddy role. I hope I don't get myself into too much trouble writing this, but it's Father's Day and some fatherly stories are in order.

For starters, Andy did not grow up with a dog and was not necessarily "dog friendly" when we met. After coming to my apartment several times as friends and then as my boyfriend, Andy was still largely avoiding and ignoring Sammie. (Back then Pepper had yet to be born, much less adopted by us.) Finally one day I made the statement that I hoped Andy realized that Sammie and I were "a package deal" and he might want to consider getting to know her a bit better...

Necessity may be the mother of invention, but appropriate motivation should get credit for something! There was quite a bit for him to learn about dogs and Sammie in particular. For example, it's hard to explain to the uninitiated that rawhide sitting in plain view of everyone is "hidden" and should not be looked at, much less touched, by us humans if we don't want a major re-hiding ritual to commence. Then there's learning to take the dog outside regularly and provide food and water and training. There are vet visits and anti-heartworm/fleas/ticks/parasites pills, rabies (& a multitude of other) vaccinations &, in Sammie's case, bandannas to wear & doggie downers for bad storms. It could overwhelm anyone, but less so the truly motivated. Andy learned a lot and he and Sammie developed a relationship. That made me happy.

In all honesty, though, Andy's true conversion to Doggie Daddyhood came when we adopted Puppy Pepper from a rescue organization. I watched Andy's transformation from relatively uninterested to truly engaged as we walked through PetSmart with our new puppy and found everything she would need. "Does she need this? What about this? Would she like this? What kind of food should she eat? Toys? Treats? Bed? Chew toys?" I'm sure I smiled from ear to ear through the entire store. Sold! I had a viable soulmate now. Andy "got" dogs. :-)