Do you teach your children to fetch and sit and play dead? No. Do your kids climb the curtains and claw the furniture and chew your stereo wires? No. Dogs and cats are not “like your children.”
That’s got to be one of the worst phrases grown adults can say when they have no children of their own. There is no, nor should there ever be any comparison of pets to kids. Sorry. Your dog or cat can climb in your lap, break things, bring you things, or shit in the wrong places, but they’ll never give you what children can give you. A purr is nice, but it won’t compare to a heartbeat or a sigh.
If you think your dog is your best friend, wait until you have a son. If you dress your animal in people costumes and your kids in animal costumes, that is as close as you’ll get to one being like the other. You can dress your dogs and cats and even your cockatoo in a sweater and diapers and put them in carriages and $1000 purses, but they’ll never match finger paints or mud, chocolate ice cream or first bicycles on a child.
A child, from the second they’re born, no, from that first kick in the mother’s belly, is something not animal nor beast will ever give you. An animal may feel like it’s giving love, safety, “emotional support” or companionship; but when a child gives it, you’ll know it’s coming from the heart you gave, physically, to them.
Your animal is not “your child,” your child is not “your pet,” though each can act like the other!