21 Reasons Why Your Family Needs a Puppy

After several years of our kids asking Santa for a puppy for Christmas, we (not Santa) finally caved and got the kids a puppy. We named her Gertie (short for Gertrude) based on a running joke that we have with the kids about what we almost named each of them.

I grew up with dogs in the house but haven’t owned one as an adult. My wife’s family never owned pets. It’s crazy that we finally agreed to get one. We’ve had Gertie for a little over a month now and I’ll just say it’s been interesting.

If you’re on the fence about whether or not to get a puppy for your family, here are 21 reasons why you should get one:

21) You need an excuse to replace your carpet. In our house, our carpets already look like they’ve been a part of multiple crime scenes. That’s what happens with three kids over the course of 8+ years. We take the pup outside constantly to use the bathroom but that hasn’t stopped her from doing her business all over our family room floor. Needless to say, we’re replacing the carpet as soon as she’s potty-trained.

20) You really enjoy using carpet cleaner. We’ve gone through an entire can of carpet cleaner in the past month. I don’t know why we even bother.

19) You’ve been sleeping too much and need a reason to get up earlier (or even in the middle of the night). Our puppy seems to need to use the bathroom at the most in-opportune times. Having to get up and go downstairs and then go outside in the cold is a lot of fun.

18) You have a weird biting fetish. Hey, I’m not judging. You’ll get bitten plenty by a puppy. Don’t let their cute little faces fool you. Their little mouths are full of little razor blades that they can’t wait to sink into your flesh. They love to bit and chew on everything. Everything!

17) Your kids don’t back-talk you enough and you want more of it. Puppies are smart. They know when you’re telling them to do something and they don’t like it.

16) You love standing outside when it’s raining, snowing and/or the weather has dropped into the single digits (or colder). You really enjoy doing it in the middle of the night. We’ve been in our house for over 8 years and we’ve already spent more time standing in our backyard than in those previous eight years combined.

15) You enjoy potty training. Puppies go to the bathroom whenever they feel like it. At least with kids you could put a diaper on them. I think I’m going to invent puppy diapers. I’d make a fortune!

14) You have clothes, shoes and other clutter to get rid of. Those shoes you were thinking about getting rid of? Don’t worry. The puppy will destroy things for you to help make this process easier.

13) You don’t like to be away from your house for more than 4-5 hours at a time. Want to do dinner and a movie? Better time it just right or you’ll come home to a puppy mess to clean up.

12) You need more mouths to feed and more bills to pay. You like taking care of others.

11) You like sitting in doctor’s offices. Like little children, you have to take puppies to the vet for shots and check-ups. A couple of weeks ago, I took the puppy and three kids to the vet. It was torture sitting in an exam room for what felt like forever. It was a thousand degrees in there.

10) You enjoy making other family members sleep in a little metal cage. This is one of the few things that can’t be compared to actual human babies. I never put any of my kids inside of a cage (even though I wanted to).

9) Your house smells too nice. A puppy definitely adds a distinctive odor to the house. Also, our pup is a gassy, tooting machine. She’s silent AND violent.

8) You love lint brushes. Depending on your breed, you will have little puppy hair everywhere.

7) Your kids don’t already fight over enough things and you’d like to mix it up a little bit more. My kids constantly fight about who’s taking the pup out of her crate, who’s taking her outside, who gets to hold her if we go somewhere and who gets to play with her. Unfortunately, they fight over who’s turn it is to take her outside (because they don’t like taking her outside).

6) You like it when other people pay more attention to your puppy than you. This is a half-joke. I remember when my kids were really small and we’d go to visit my parents or other family members. We’d walk up and they would say “(My kids’ names) are here!” It never bothered me but I thought it was funny because it’s not like the kids came alone.

5) You love loud noises, especially barking and yelping. Don’t let my pup’s small size fool you. She can be super loud. It’s even more awesome when she wants to go to the bathroom at 5 AM (when she wakes up the kids).

4) You miss giving your kids baths in the kitchen sink. We’ve given our pup a couple of baths in our sink. The kids love it. We couldn’t help but tell them about how we used to give them baths in the sink when they first came home. It’s even more fun watching our pup dry off afterwards.

3) You love drying off little feet after coming in from the snow or rain. In the past month, we’ve had both. It’s a huge pain to take the pup outside. She doesn’t enjoy being dried off either.

2) You love feeling confined to one or two rooms in your house. We have our family room blocked off so that the puppy can’t go anywhere else. I feel like sometimes we’re trapped in there because we have to make sure she’s not getting into anything (or pooping on the floor). I haven’t watched TV in my basement man cave in over a month.

And the number one reason why your family needs to get a puppy RIGHT NOW is…

1) You will have another member of the family that will bring you everlasting joy, loyalty, fun and companionship. We love having a puppy. I am looking forward to the day when she’ll sit next to me on the couch and not try to bit my face off…