I was sitting with some friends on another friend’s patio one beautiful Oklahoma evening, enjoying a nice glass of cabernet and watching our hostess’s dog run around the backyard, relentlessly retrieving a ball every single time it was thrown. I’m pretty sure I was pondering how foolish this animal must be to continue to go after the ball each time we threw it, instead of flipping us off (which admittedly , would be hard to do with a paw – which is why I’m glad I have fingers)
Right about that point, my dear friend said, ” I’m glad I had her rest this afternoon…”

Here are the questions that immediately formed in my head: She had her rest earlier that day? How does one make their dog rest? Why would anyone make their dog rest? And lastly, when my dogs aren’t busy chewing up my patio cushions and pooping in my closet, they appear to rest without encouragement from me…

As a battle-scarred mother of 5, I’m no stranger to making those under my care rest. And it often wasn’t easy. Different tactics helped – such as bribery, reading a story and even pinning them down -outweighing them by 100 lbs or so.

With this many under my belt, you’ll forgive me if I am not overly- invested in whether or not my dogs nap.

With that said, however, this shift toward Americans treating their dogs as though they were their human toddlers, warrants a small amount of contemplation, or as They would say on SNL, “what up with that?”

I believe this social phenomenon has its roots in the shrinking of family size over the past 50 years or so. With the advent of birth control options, we can control how many offspring we spring off…. and, with less kids in the nest, we have a lot of love left to give our dogs…

Now, lest you hear judgement in my voice, please understand- I’m not criticizing anyone else’s choices. Just attempting to alleviate my own guilt…because there’s a huge possibility that I won’t put the dogs down for a nap this afternoon. In fact, if I ever mention that I “put them down this afternoon,” think the worst…