My husband Dan and I knew our dogless days were numbered well before we finally acquired our puppy. For one thing, our boys, Matthew, 11, and Jacob, 13, began asking for a dog shortly after they learned to speak.

Eventually, they started visiting dog pounds in much the same way other children head for malls. For years, Dan and I asked ourselves the same questions: Could we learn to live without large chunks of our sofa? Did we really want a wet, cold nose on our pillows prodding us for a 6 A.M. stroll? Were we ready for a dog?

All four of us had learned about owning a pet via four cats, a rabbit, highly reproductive hamsters and mice, a turtle and a parakeet. But we had learned the hard way, without doing much planning. That meant finding out that our children soon lose fascination with pets that don't respond in a deeply personal way. Claw, the parakeet that Jacob couldn't live without at age eight, could sing and hop, but he refused to say, "Hi, Jacob." Claw is now my pet.

Another surprise was discovering that my husband and I were suddenly caring for more than children and plants. We'd assumed the boys would do more animal caretaking than they actually did, a common parental error. No matter how good their intentions, children need help with a pet. They are responsible until they forget to be, and then, one way or the other, the pet comes hunting for you.

Still, owning a pet--many pets--has been worth the trouble. Animals are inherently intriguing and surreptitiously educational. Matthew, for instance, woke up one day to find a nest of baby mice in the mouse cage. And both boys eventually learned to take care of something besides themselves. They also discovered that animals are great playmates, icebreakers and boredom-smashers.



Dorothy Foltz-Gray, a contributing editor to FAMILYFUN, lives in Knoxville, Tennessee.