Austin is 8 and his mother is a barber - my barber. I was getting a haircut a Saturday or two ago and Austin was hanging around and getting bored. There's a pet shop down the street and Austin asked if he could go down and look around.
About 15 minutes later, he was back. "Hey Mom, can I get a mouse?" Answer: "No, you can't get a mouse."
Kids love pets even if they're not good about taking care of them. When I was a boy, we had this scruffy little dog named Clem who came from many generations of mixed parentage and grand-parentage. We loved Clem and Clem loved us. One day, when I wasn't paying enough attention, Clem, about a half block behind, was following me to school. Clem wasn't street-wise and he got in the way of a high school kid roaring down the street. Yes, Clem died and I cried. We put Clem in his little doghouse and buried them both in the backyard.
With Clem gone, I resolved to never again get attached to another dog. But when I left home, they got another little pooch - this one was a fox terrier named Piffles. Jerome K. Jerome was quoted as saying that fox terriers are born with about four times as much original sin in them as other dogs, but that wasn't true of Piffles. That pooch loved to ride in my dad's gas truck and go on deliveries. She was a loyal and loving little pup. But Piffles, too, met a premature and sad ending, though I'm not going to tell you the details - only that many tears were shed.
Our children never had a pet. There are some who believe that if your children don't have a pet, they don't have much of a mother and dad either. Now, our son Buckwheat, proving to be a more caring dad than his own pop, got a beautiful golden lab named Swede for his children a year or so ago. Swede couldn't possibly be a more attractive animal, but she seems to be a slow learner. She was behind when they got her and she's never caught up. The children, 9 and 7, seem mostly immune to Swede's affection and their mom, Lo, well, she's more than immune.
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Buckwheat continues to work hard with Swede, but he's the only one who seems to care and, well, progress has been discouraging.
If anybody can make it work with Swede, it's my boy Buckwheat. On the other hand, if it somehow doesn't work, he can always get the kids a mouse.
