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| Rob's Soapbox | ||
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Congratulations!
You have finally landed on the one page on this entire site (and on the entire internet for that matter) that is purely without bullshit... my soapbox page. There are a lot of times during our show that, whether it's because of time constraints and other obligations, I don't always get to address some issues that I feel don't get the attention they deserve. There are even more times when I just don't feel like waiting until the show the next day to get some things off my chest. Thus, I have started the "Rob's Soapbox" page. If you have clicked on this page looking for someone to coddle your fragile sense of self-esteem, or tell you what you want to hear or to reinforce your outdated world view, then exit this page right now and go somewhere else. If you are in search of the last forum for reason and common sense left in the world, then sit back, relax, and enjoy. I make only one promise with this soapbox page... if you read long enough and often enough, you will eventually be offended. So here's my latest soapbox. Listen up, 'cause you just might learn something... |
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January 23rd, 2006 CHILDREN IN AMERICA ARE JUST DOGS WITH LESS FUREver since my wife and I brought our German Shepherd puppy, "Shep," home in September I have been amazed, educated and transformed in a variety of ways, very few of them positive. Perhaps most startling to me has been the overwhelming majority of parents who have told me that, having done both, raising a puppy is harder than raising a child. When pressed for more details they acknowledged that, in the abstract, of course raising a child is harder because it's at least an 18 year commitment, whereas raising a puppy becomes a cake walk after 2 years if you've done it correctly. However, none of that changed the parents' perspective on the puppy years; those 18 months, said almost all of them, are much more intense, time consuming and demanding than any specific, concentrated time raising a child. Wow, I thought. On the positive side of things I was thankful to hear that most of my friends invest as much time as I do in raising their puppies. In a nation littered with animal neglect and abuse it's comforting to know that some people still treasure their pets. On the other hand, these people, these so called "experts by experience" cannot be right. How in the world can raising a puppy be more difficult than raising a child? Is it that we live in a nation now where parents don't do most of the child raising, so their perception is that it's really not that difficult a task? Perhaps if I were a parent who handed my child off to a daycare center, television, in-law and/or video game for hours on end I might not think it was that tough of a job, either. Or is it that we live in a time when we no longer take parenting that seriously? In the past 15 years being a parent has been defined by the annual photo of the child in his or her best outfit and how many pieces of furniture the kid owns from Pottery Barn. I'm puzzled and troubled by these questions and I don't really have the answers for you, yet. I find that raising a puppy correctly is an amazing amount of very rewarding work. Seeing your efforts pay off as the dog grows into the pet you want him to be is fantastic. While I, unlike my parental friends, would never compare the two, I have had a glimpse of the self-sacrifice a child must demand while I have been raising Shep. It is a life of have-to's. Whether I want to or not, I HAVE to give Shep his daily run, take him on his potty breaks, give him play time, have training sessions twice per day, feed him, groom him and deal with his unannounced desires to be loud or rambunctious. In all of these moments while I have felt that initial frustration of "having to," I have comforted myself knowing that much of it will be lessened or completely over in 18 months. Not so with a child. With a puppy, you do all of your work for 2 years creating a great dog which then requires very little maintenance, relatively, on your part. With a kid, the maintenance never stops, it just changes from Barbie to the birds and the bees. The other main thing I have been startled by while raising Shep has been how poorly most people treat their pets. Lest I be accused of being hypocritical, I am referring here to my observations of people, usually strangers, around me, not my friends who I earlier stated were putting the same amount of care as I am into raising their puppies. It seems that those of who treasure our pets are, in fact, in the minority. My observations range from the simple to the heartbreaking. Watch people walking their dog; rather than having the dog securely on their left side with a slack leash and similar paces (the only proper way to walk a dog), almost all people allow their dogs to roam, pull them and walk wherever they want, instilling no sense of discipline or rigidity in the dog, something all canines crave. Many people use walks as a time for their dog to go to the bathroom, a horrible practice that once again fails to teach the animal anything about routine and protocol. More disturbing than idiotic dog walkers are the owners who leave their animals outside, alone, all the time. It is heartbreaking to hear their howls of loneliness and their desire to be with their pack, their family. Some of these dogs go days without seeing a human and when they do, the time is that of the person cleaning the dog's area and then leaving. No love, no play, no happiness for the dog. Horrible. The list goes on and on and I guess that as I write this I'm really not that surprised at all. The Interior Minister of Italy recently correctly stated that a society can be judged on its' compassion by how it treats its' pets. So true. If you take my experiences written here and summarize them, you come up with the following observation: We live in a nation where pride and effort, as it relates to raising our children and our pets, is at an all-time low. There are few people who still invest the needed and necessary time, effort and emotion in both or either, but on a whole, we have lost so much of ourselves when it comes to the work we should be doing for our pets and kids. Pets need love and companionship, kids need love and direction. Pets need routine and praise, kids needs structure and discipline. Pets need to be told when they do right, kids need to be taught how and why not to do wrong. All of these things require time, patience and selflessness from a society that is rushed, harried and ignorantly self involved. Now, read that last paragraph and tell me that anyone would be able to intelligently argue the truth behind it. Whether you own a dog, have a child, or simply watch the world go by, the truth is we're on the wrong track…with no end in sight.
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