“Why I will never be a good parent,” or “Please don't take my dog away!”

Some couples get dogs as trial children. They seem to think, “If we can handle a dog, then we can handle a human.” No. I would like to inform that using a dog as a prop is totally unlike having a baby. Or, I would like to inform that having a dog is exactly like a little human in that someone is always doing something wrong to the family baby.

Sunday my husband called me from Orlando. I said, “The dog is scratching a lot so I’m giving her a Benedryl.”

His sage response, “I’m not there to stop you, so go ahead I guess.”

And I did. I gave my dog a human medication she had never had before, locked her in her crate, and left for work. A few hours later I thought, “Oh man, what a shame. I’m not there to see if the Benedryl is actually working.” A few hours after that I thought, “Hm, I hope the Benedryl doesn’t make her sick.” Fast forward a few more hours, “Oh my god, I probably killed the dog with Benedryl because I gave her an unknown medication then left her alone in our house and she’s probably going insane or already covered in flies or having a doggie heart-attack right now!”

I tried to convince myself that all would be well because The QC Report often talks about her dog’s amazing ability to be allergic to everything and its inability to swallow pills.

One of the problems with me, the dog, and pills is that she loves them so much that I have a hard time not giving her random medication. Let’s see, I’ve given her multi-vitamins, calcium pills, flax seed oil capsules, and now Benedryl. I’ve given her tons of Dramamine, but the vet actually said that was OK. Once, she was driving me so crazy when we were on a road trip, I gave her one of my clonazepam. It made no difference. Something that knocks me out cold, and she didn’t stop barking and shimmying for a second. The clonazepam is probably my greatest offense against canine pill safety, but she was never the worse for it. Of course, she thought it was a treat. Maybe that’s why she was still insane. Pills are the greatest thing on earth to her, second only to rawhide.

I am the type of mother that would eat unpasteurized cheese while pregnant and feed my infant honey just because she liked it. I am the kind of parent that would FREAK at a fever and fill the bathtub with ice and cold water—just in case. I would be the type of mother upset by poop consistency. “Oh my god, Matthew, look at her diaper! It’s totally not like it was yesterday! Did she get in the dog toys? Oh, wait, did I give her Benedryl then leave her unsupervised for eight hours? Oh yeah, that’s it. But totally look at the diaper anyway. It’s really gross.”

Cats, however, are the perfect training tool for deciding if you want to have children or not. They never do what you want them to do when you want them to do it. People, get a cat. A dog will only teach you that crate training is a miracle on par with sightings of The Madonna. Or just Madonna sightings, if that’s your thing.