I do love pets and I do love kids and grandkids. I probably understand pets better than I understand kids. I know for sure that was the case at the age when I began having kids.
Being a thinking man, I sometimes glance back and forth between kids and pets, and ponder their relative position in the cosmic value scale. Here are just a few of my musings, for better or worse.
Kids and pets both have a habit of hogging any bed I want to be on. I have a good friend who happens to be a dog (I consider him my pack mate), and he always plops down in the exact geographic center of the bed. Well, except that if two people are on that bed, he will wrangle his way in between them and pass out.
Trying to outmaneuver him is futile because he will wake up and do the same thing again.
Both kids and pets have a habit of sleeping spread-eagle on a bed, radiating from the center point. This makes it difficult to sleep on the same bed and can wind up with the adult human on a couch or the floor. I’m certain this was the plan all along.
Affection and kisses are a very different manner, and kids get the higher grade. This brings me to a non-bendable rule I lay down for my dogs and cats … cuddle and kiss me first, then go and smell other dogs’ and cats’ butts afterward. I reiterate this rule frequently and firmly.
Pets get a higher grade than kids in many aspects of cohabitation. For example, pets are easier to train. Even a Great Dane or a foraging black bear will eat less than a teenage kid.
Dogs will often come when called but kids and cats, not so much. Pets don’t ask for money all the time and they don’t ask to drive the car. Both pets and kids often turn up their nose at the dinner served, without offering to make their own.
The more I look back and forth between pets and kids, the more the reality dawns on me. For one, you don’t need to give many years of salary or wages to send a pet to college. The real clencher though is that if your pet gets pregnant, you can sell its children.
And with that, this relative cosmic value discussion begins to wrap itself up.
— Capt. David Bacon operates WaveWalker Charters and is president of SOFTIN Inc., a nonprofit organization providing seafaring opportunities for those in need. Visit softininc.blogspot.com to learn more about the organization and how you can help. Click here to read previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.
