[eyelidlessness]

Having a pup and embracing her as my kid feels similar. I know it’s not the same, but I sincerely think that waking up every day putting my pup first is the best thing I’ve ever lived for. Everything else is just icing I have more reason to enjoy.

[Waterluvian]

This is so wonderful to hear. I’m so many ways a puppers is like a toddler. You can’t take days off. You can’t decide to just put it off for a while or skip the walk when the weather is poor.

[antisthenes]

A pup is just an eternal toddler for 13-15 years. It never gets old.

[Thorentis]

A sad indictment on modern society that this paragraph is able to be written.

[eyelidlessness]

Don’t worry, I’m not modern society. I’m just some guy who finds joy being a good human for and with my pup, caring for her wellbeing, finding fun healthy things to do with her. I find a lot of joy in a lot of other things too, they’re just all incomparable to my relationship with my pup. If that still sounds like a sad indictment of anything, I’ve failed you somehow but I’m gonna throw in the towel and go snuggle with my pup regardless.

[eyelidlessness]

A happy indictment on modern society is that my little sib and I just had lots of laughs talking about this while having a real fun play with my pup.

[lanamo]

John Wick here. please be nice. you probably never had a dog - i hope you will one day and experience the joy of such a companionship.

[annyeonghada]

I have a dog and still find very uncanny to compare a baby human being to a puppy. A symptom of an ill society.

[infamousclyde]

Why did you find the parent comment sad? I'm not sure I understand your sentiment.

[wnolens]

The thing that most makes this poster's life worth living is caring for an animal which was engineered to be pleasant to care for. And a lot of people use these animals to replace human relationships (I've seen it quite a few times, so blatantly) as they are simpler and more stable. And the indictment is about society (in which human relationships are really hard to have for so so many reasons), not this poster, who has figured out a real cheat code to life and love (and more power to them)

[eyelidlessness]

Well, if I can speak for myself, my relationship with my pup has improved my relationship with several humans. And whatever she was engineered for, a simple and stable relationship has been something we’ve built over just shy of four years and still work on.

To the extent there’s any notion of replacing human relationships and to your sibling comment’s point, she didn’t replace parenting a human child for me. That would never have happened, I had already decided that and agreed with my previous partner about that before we adopted pup.

There is one way my relationship with pup has curtailed other human interactions: I don’t want to spend a lot of time with people who find being around pup a nuisance. People who want to enjoy her are very welcome. People who are cautious about unfamiliar dogs are also welcome and they almost always warm up to her immediately. People who want me to exist without consideration of my pup don’t get my time. I have the same expectations for the presence of humans in my life who are important to me and aren’t harming anyone.

[wnolens]

> she didn’t replace parenting a human child for me. That would never have happened, I had already decided that and agreed with my previous partner about that

If I read that correctly, you decided with your partner to not ever have kids.

Do you think that decision resulted in some room you had in your life to collectively care for a little creature that returns affection?

[eyelidlessness]

For clarification:

- I independently decided I didn’t want human children well before this relationship or even meeting my former partner

- I can’t recall whether former partner told me when they arrived at the same conclusion, but it also predated our relationship.

- Most of the reason for mentioning this was that former partner adopted pup, not me. To wit: there wasn’t any potential (that I can think of) for me subconsciously substituting a pup in place of potential human parenthood.

- Our agreement on the topic was mainly meant to bolster the fact that human child rearing was never in question. There wasn’t anything of that sort to substitute, for me or for the circumstances of my life.

- Without airing more private details than I’d find comfortable, pup came with me when former partner and I amicably parted ways. Despite pup not being “mine” in the strictest sense.

To answer your question more directly: I defer to the original commenter I replied to. The thing what made me make space to care for my pup was having no alternatives. She’s my charge, she’s my responsibility to provide a good life. There aren’t days off and there aren’t excuses.

Even before OP replied stating these things, that’s what I recognized as similar in my parenting responsibilities.

The thing which seems to be bothering a few people is that I expressed feeling a similar bond to my pup that people feel with their human children.

I grew up with dogs. My family has had dogs I’ve known and loved since. Some I’ve bonded with more than others, some not so much. My relationship with my pup has developed different from that.

Being really blunt: for everything else I love about her, a part of the reason we’ve bonded so well is because I didn’t get to choose. That’s the thing that felt similar to OP’s comment about how parenting a human child changed their life. I had a new life where a whole living creature was my responsibility and mine to provide both basic and emotional needs.

Now if this is still unsatisfactory as far as why I made that connection, maybe I’ve failed you… or maybe, like another sibling commenter said, you want to project things onto what I’ve said that aren’t there. Either way, I gotta feed my pup and give her a good fun play or three. So that’s all I’ve got.

[quickthrower2]

I don’t see how they replace human relationships though. I have 2 dogs. 2 kids too! But yeah dogs are nice to have around. Sometimes annoying (barking, toilet incidents, training issues and so on)

[wnolens]

Those dogs aren't your reason your living though. Didn't say "all people who have dogs.."

[eyelidlessness]

Here if this helps: not the reason I’m holding on to being alive, the most important purpose I serve in the life I’m living. I don’t experience that with human children, but I do experience it with my pup. I care for her a great deal and she’s my most important responsibility. I really think it’s weird that this is such a foreign concept or needs this much explanation to anyone.

[komali2]

I found it sad too, because, and I say this as a dog lover who's had a great many of them (and a shitload other pets too), the line was "waking up every day putting my pup first is the best thing I’ve ever lived for."

I don't think it's bad to put a puppy first, where the indictment of society seems to stand for me is that this is "the best thing" they've ever lived for.

I'm really really happy for the OP because it's really good to have a wonderful thing to live for, of course. And, dogs are awesome (albeit as sibling said, genetically engineered to be awesome, not that that really matters). More like... this feels to me another example of the extreme isolation of our modern society, especially in countries like the USA which lacks a degree of freedom enjoyed by many of us (freedom from fiscal anxiety caused by medical or education debt, freedom from fear of homelessness, freedom of travel, of leisure). I don't know the OP's location but the story smacks true of so many of my American friends who have found joy in their isolated lifestyle after getting a dog. Functionally alone in the suburbs, after driving home alone from work, too far from social meeting places and too tired to go to them after getting home around 7, their greatest joy is the dog that greets them earnestly when they get home. Their outside time is forced (happily) by the dog that needs a walk, otherwise, why bother? Walk around in the suburbs? If there's even a sidewalk, you're lucky.

But there's plenty of people for whom human interaction is basically torture, and in cases like that I'm really happy that such people can still find a form of social joy through a dog. We could be completely missing the mark with the OP, basically projecting our frustration with modern society on a very short paragraph from a stranger.

[eyelidlessness]

> But there's plenty of people for whom human interaction is basically torture

On HN, sometimes doubly so. I’ve several times deleted similar comments anticipating they’d be misunderstood. But “indictment on society” and reinforcing that as an illness of society is beyond the cruelty I’d imagined people here would come up with.

> We could be completely missing the mark with the OP, basically projecting our frustration with modern society on a very short paragraph from a stranger.

Maybe? You think? Random people telling me there’s something wrong with the whole society around me because I love my dog?

[komali2]

/shrug there are many things wrong with society, I stand by that statement strongly.

[eyelidlessness]

You catalogued a bunch of big, wrong, assumptions about my life and circumstances, and about my disposition towards them. You went on to acknowledge that it’s possible you’re projecting. Which would be reasonable, even kind and a welcome amount of self-awareness relative to some others’ reactions, except…

I confirmed that yes, you’d been projecting, and yes your assumptions were wrong. And your reaction to that is to double down, strongly. So we’re back at my individual relationship, as one human, with my one pup, has anything at all to do with society, and that my affection is somehow an indictment thereof.

Look, I regret sharing that affection here and its reaction has lived rent free in my head for more time than I’d prefer to admit. But I’m also not going to pretend that total strangers translating I love my pup to anything about society is anything less than totally absurd, particularly anything negative.

And look, I’m prone to missing social cues, so when I saw the first reply I sincerely wondered if there was something implicit in my comment or these reactions that wasn’t connecting for me. But having read your and other explanations, I don’t think it’s me.

Anyway, hell is other people so I’m going to try my best to put this discussion out of mind, confident that my relationship with my pup and with my friends and family who don’t shrug when told they’re being cruel is much healthier than … whatever the hell this has been.

[jombib]

I think that some people believe that more people leads to more progress, and disagree with the sentiments of people that don’t want kids.

[the_gipsy]

It's sad that your paragraph is still written.