Growing up with a dog is one of the best things in the world. They are always competing with your mom to be your number one fan. When you’re happy, they’re right there beside you wagging their tail 1000 miles per minute. When you’re sad they come to your rescue with puppy kisses. They watched you grow up, from your first kiss to your first heartbreak, and if you’re lucky enough they were even there to see you off to college. Saying goodbye to them was hard, but actually living without them is so much harder. You always thought you’d have a dog of your own when you moved out, no matter the cost. Sadly, it’s not that easy. Whether you live in a dorm with a no-pets policy, or you’re like me and can’t afford your apartment’s ridiculous pet deposit, there are ten struggles all dogless dog people can relate to.
1.Your favorite part about visiting home is getting to see your dog.
You love your family and you miss them too but your dog doesn’t call you 12 times a day like your mom does. And no matter how long it’s been since you’ve visited last, they never forget you. They’re the first one to greet you at the door and the last one you say goodbye too because it’s so hard. Your mom may get annoyed with you always asking to put them on FaceTime, but until technology advances enough for you to be able to text your dog, FaceTime is all you have.
2. You’ve seriously considered sneaking a dog into your dorm/apartment anyway.
Even though you know you’d never get away with it, you still consider how hard it’d actually be to hide a dog in your room. Maybe nobody will notice you carrying a 20 pound bag of dog food up to the third floor, your RA is never around anyways. And who says you can’t train a dog to use a litter box?
3. Your social media consists of 90% dog videos.
You know you probably annoy everyone with your nonstop sharing of animal videos but you can’t help it. You tell yourself that six videos is enough and you need to stop, but then you see a bulldog wearing a tutu and all of a sudden nothing else matters.
4. You torture yourself by looking at dogs that are up for adoption even though you know you can’t have them.
You spend more time browsing dog adoptions than you do on Tinder. You promise yourself that you won’t fall for one, but you know that’s a lie. You know you’re going to find one 23 that you can’t help but fall in love with; with each scroll past them another little piece of you dies.
5. You don’t have your future children’s names picked out but you have an entire list of potential dog names.
Having kids might be nice one day, but a dog’s never going to grow up and be embarrassed by you. To them you’ll always be cool.
6. If you have a friend with a dog you’re always finding excuses to hang out at their place.
“Yeah but my microwave clock is broken, why don’t we just hang out at your place?”
7. When you see someone walking their dog you can’t help but run over and pet them.
Seeing a dog when you didn’t expect to is enough to make your day. You don’t even give them a chance to answer when you ask if you can pet it and your friend literally has to drag you away when it’s time for them to leave.
8. Your motivation to work hard in school is so that you can support your future dogs one day.
Because you know you’re going to be that wife that goes to the store to get milk and comes home with yet another dog. How else are you going to afford to take care of all 33 of them?
9. You can never decide on which breed to get when you actually are able to have one.
Corgis are so cute with their short little legs and big ears, but then there’s bulldogs with their adorable mushed faces, but there’s also Great Danes that are so lovable because they have no idea how big they actually are. Why not just get them all?
10. You realize even though you really want one, you realize that it’s kind of a good thing that you don’t have a dog.
Even though you’d want to spoil your dog so much if you had one, you know you can’t afford it. You’re not home enough to give them all the attention they deserve and vet bills can get really expensive. It just wouldn’t be fair to them. So for now you’ll just have to live vicariously through all of the Facebook videos you share.
Even if you can’t have a dog, that doesn’t mean you can’t do anything. Next time you have some extra cash try calling up your local animal shelter and seeing what they’re in need of. It doesn’t have to be expensive, if you don’t have a lot of money the dollar store sells pet toys that you can donate. And if you have absolutely no spare change, like most college students, you can always donate your time. It doesn’t take much, but even the smallest gesture can make a huge difference for dogs in a shelter.
