I’ve had the pleasure of having dogs my whole life. From the moment I was born to now, I have always had at least one dog; this inherently made me a dog person. Cats are cute, but you’ll find me playing with the dog. Moving to school was my first experience of living for an extensive amount of time without one. Now that I’m home for the summer, there are a few things that didn’t occur to me only happen to pet/dog owners.

1. Hair on everything. Literally. No lie, no exaggeration; hair covers everything I own. Anything in black or white is automatically a mistake, since hair practically clings to it. If you’re going somewhere and need to be relatively hair free, you can’t sit down once you’re dressed. With two dogs in the house, fur accumulates very quickly, sometimes leaving balls of it scattered about.
2. Strange sounds at random times. I don’t ever really get scared if I’m home alone and there’s strange sounds. The only usual feeling I get is irritation, because it means the dogs probably got into something again. My dogs are usually heard before they’re seen.
3. You have to be moderately responsible. You can’t just take random trips or be gone for 12+ hours. You have to make sure you let the dogs out, or make sure you have someone to watch them while you’re gone. Sometimes this involves getting up in the middle of the night to let them outside, just so they can sniff around for 20 minutes and then, maybe, they’ll go to the bathroom and come back in.
4. Messy presents. If you do leave them for longer than they can handle, or you ignore their midnight pleas to go out, or you simply just piss them off enough to where they want to retaliate, you get to deal with the lovely presents they leave behind. This can take multiple forms, from torn-up garbage to them just going to the bathroom in the house. Bonus points if it’s on carpet. There’s no maid to clean it, and it doesn’t magically disappear if you ignore it. So find your paper towels and plastic bags and just try not to think about it.
5. Guarding your food. My dogs are usually pretty good about this, but the second you let your guard down, they come right in and sneak a bite at your dinner. You always have to be on high alert, because it seems that dog food just isn’t as good as people food (not that I blame them). They may take another tactic and just stare at you with their puppy begging face and make you feel all sad and guilty for not sharing. Just remember that they are smarter than you give them credit for; it’s a trap.
6. Swearing they’re the biggest pain, but loving them anyway. Any time I tell a story about how annoying my dogs were at some time or another, I get the question, “Well, why don’t you just not have dogs?” Um, yeah right. As annoying as they are sometimes, I still like them more than most people, so that’s not going to happen. I’ll just hold on to my lint roller and paper towels. I think it’s a fair trade for the cuddles.