How Many Dogs Do You Own?

My guess. . .you don’t own any.

Maybe it’s just a “pet” peeve of mine, and something worth mentioning (or not).  I don’t believe we own our dogs any more than we own another person, place, or thing.  If we have pets, we are also given the opportunity and responsibility for taking care of them.  That is different than owning them.

It may sound like semantics, however, there is a subtle yet important difference in basing our expectations for our pets on our right as their owners rather than what we owe them.  As soon as we decide to bring them into our families and homes, we also “adopt” a responsibility for their care.

Dogs live in the realm of subtlties.  Our response to them should be in that same realm.  There’s nothing wrong with referencing dog ownership, as long as we know that we don’t truly own anything – our dogs are no exception.