Our society is saturated with happy, perfect pictures - social media where everyone else’s lives look flawless—movies, TV shows, and books with love stories that work out all too nicely for the happy ever after. We can’t deny that our attention-spans are short, and when something gets boring, it’s all to easy to move onto the next exciting thing. The average work-ethic isn’t too high. We want ease, comfort, and perfection, and we want it right now. Do you want to combat this in your own life? Buy a puppy.

I’m not talking about a house-trained puppy or one that already knows how to sit and stay or has had any type of training. No taking the easy route.

Does this sound totally unrelated? When you think about having a puppy, what are the first things that come to mind? Do you imagine laughing and aww-ing at its antics? Walking it peacefully in the park? Even cuddling with it on the couch to watch a movie?

Get a dog, and you’ll realize that not every moment is a cute-puppy-video worthy moment or an adorable moon-eyed-pic moment to post on Facebook. It won’t take long for you to see how little of the picture of reality social media shows you, and that little bit of reality ruins the whole picture.

Get a dog, and you’ll realize that’s it’s not what you’d expect it would be. College, relationships, owning your own house, having an actual job, starting a family—you thought it would be easier than this. What will you do when you realize it’s not? When you get married, then all of that newness wears off, and it’s harder than you thought it would be, what will you do? Will you give up and move on, or will you stick with it because good things take time and hard work?

One of the best life happenings that raising a dog helps prepare you for is raising a baby—lots of responsibility and lots of sacrifice. It takes up a huge chunk of your life. You feed them multiple times a day and clean up their messes. You have to keep an eye on them to make sure they’re not swallowing something they shouldn’t. They wake you up in the middle of the night. What will you do when they stain the carpet? Don’t forget: who’s going to watch the little one when you want to enjoy a night out?

When having your own little ball of fur turns out not to be like you thought, you can’t just give up on it and move on. You have to find someone else who will take care of it. You’ll remember that experience. It won’t be that big of a deal, though. It will be a bigger deal if you do the same thing with your dream job, or the house you always wanted, or Mr. Right, or Mrs. Right, or your kids. You’ll be left with a little more than a memory; you’ll be left with an ache in your heart, and you could be leaving an ache in someone else’s heart too.