“Just wait until you have real kids…"

Six months before our wedding my fiancé and I adopted our first child, Duke, an 8 week old flashy fawn boxer. We both fell instantly in love with Duke and became over protective parents. Part of this was because Duke was our first real responsibility with a heartbeat, but the main reason is our pets truly are a part of our family.

Within in weeks of constantly talking about Duke and sharing pictures with friends and family, the obnoxious and annoying comments started. For some reason, people felt inclined to share with us: “Wait until you have real kids; that dog will just become a pet,” or “Relax, he is just a dog…” and so on. I am sure many of you know exactly the kind of comments I am talking about. Well at first I didn’t really understand how I would feel because I didn’t have any human kids yet. Maybe all the comments were right and we were way too protective and spoiling Duke. 

Fast forward eight years later when we welcomed our daughter into the world. Sure, our daughter brought a new kind of excitement and responsibility, but we still loved our Duke as much as ever. I often thought about all of those comments. But everyone was wrong. We now had a human kid and still considered Duke to be our kid as well.

So for all of those pet parents out there, know you are not crazy. For most of us, we consider our pets a sibling or kid, but most importantly, a part of our family. So ignore the comments and never feel guilty about how much you spoil your pet or love them!