Getting a dog instead of having a child – A Comparison.

Dog versus Child. Could child substitutes be the answer to human overpopulation?

I have written this article as an exploration of the idea that people could choose to have a dog rather than have children. It seems almost certain that unless we solve  the looming human overpopulation crisis the future of people born at the present time will be very grim.  There are too many humans for the planet to support. We could limit ourselves voluntarily now or let the people alive in the near future  suffer the decline of the human race which seems inevitable. The question is not “if” but “when” will the shit hit the fan?    The dystopian future is just around the corner.  Maybe you should rush out , buy extra dried beans and learn how to make a hobo stove.

I have never wanted children and have always continued to be very happy with my decision especially when spending time with friends who did have children.  About 4 years ago I got a dog and I have undergone a lot of the emotional bonding processes that I assume happens when people have children. I have a gooey emotional “aaaaah” reflex when watching my dog run around, I fantasize about   attacking anyone who would dare to hurt my dog. I imagine that my dog is the best and most attractive dog in the world. These must be the instinctual  feelings and responses that are designed  to make humans look after a child.  This has led me to believe that for some people a dog could act as a child substitute. If enough people chose child substitutes it may alleviate the overpopulation crisis. With the advent of AI we could also develop robotic Tamagotchi like creatures similar to K9 on Doctor Who which would satisfy the need to have children in a much more ecological and convenient way.   In the 80’s there was an expression “fuck dancing, let’s fuck” Nowadays it could be “fuck children, let’s get a dog”.

The following is a comparison of the realities of having a dog and having a child.  I am sure that the text below will be offensive to some people but it is just reality in the way that I see it. I respect the right of people to have children and I believe that if it very unlikely  that the human race is a viable concern at the present population  level even if we do all get dogs it is already too late.

Cost: Although most dogs do not live to be 18 years old to make a comparison we will make calculations based on 18 years. Many years ago most children would get a job and start paying for themselves at 18 but in many countries children will continue to be a drain on resources until they leave home and get married which could be up to 30 years old or even never.

Cost of getting a dog to 18 years.

$1000 first year $700 afterwards
So $1000 + $11900 = $12 900.

Cost of getting a child to 18 years.
Calculating the cost of bringing up a child is incredibly complicated. I just went to 5 or 6 big websites and made an average of their figures.

Child – $300,000

Cost Conclusion:
Having a dog is much cheaper than having a child. If you get a dog rather than having a child you could spend a lot of money on yourself, buy a bigger house, get a better car etc.

Toilet training:

Dog: If you get a new puppy it will have been brought up by the mother dog for the first weeks of its life. After a very brief period it will be house trained and as long as you allow it to go out at certain times of the day it is unlikely that the dog will shit or piss inside your house.

Child: A child has effectively have no control over its bladder or bowel movements. According to some websites I looked at the average time until a baby is potty trained is between 2 and 3 years, some say it is even more. Nowadays most people use disposable nappys/diapers which is incredibly un-ecological not the mention the extremely unpleasant smell and experience of changing a baby. The average baby goes through 5,000 diapers before being potty-trained,  95 percent of these diaper end up in landfills.

Obtaining a dog or a child in the first place.

Dog: You don’t have to spend any money on buying a dog if you don’t want to, just go to the local dog pound and there will be lots of dogs for you to choose from. If you do want an exclusive designer pedigree dog to impress your friends with it could be very expensive but a cheaper pedigree like a labradoodle should not be much more than $250

Child: Maybe the child could win on this one because the easiest way to conceive is to have sex which for most people is an enjoyable activity. However 15 minutes of pleasure is followed by weeks of morning sickness and 9 months of pregnancy which by all accounts is not a walk in the park. If you are lucky childbirth will be no longer than several hours of agony and only mild disfigurement of the genitalia.

Disposability.

Dog: It is unlikely that anyone would choose to have a dog that has a health problem. However at some point a dog may develop an illness which means that it is not fun to have anymore, or the dog is suffering. In this case it is a fairly simple process to have the dog painlessly dispatched by a vet with the minimum of fuss. No depressing suffering, costly medical procedures and heartache.

Child: Having a child has an element of risk. If you are unlucky a child could turn out to have a physical or mental illness. Many people when faced with this reality behave exceptionally well. The nurturing bond is so strong that many parents will put their entire life on hold to look after an ill child. This can be very heroic, nevertheless nobody would choose to have a defective child and there is no easy solution. Euthanasia is illegal and there is no easy way out except to grin and bear it.

Long Term Benefits

Dog: Dogs don’t live that long and most dogs after 10 years old will be getting senile.  A dog will not look after you in your old age when you yourself have become senile and unable to look after yourself.

Child: If they are lucky people with children will be looked after by their offspring in their old age.  Those of us  who chose dogs will take a trip to the bottom of the garden to visit Fido’s grave but have nobody to cut the lawn on the way back.  Maybe this IS an advantage of having kids.

Health Benefits.

Dog:  If you are a lazy person the fact that a dog has to be taken out for a walk at least twice a day may seem a disadvantage however for most people the obligation to take the dog for a walk  will result in regular exercise which will result in weight control, lower cholesterol, better heart health etc.

Child: The negative effects of childbirth are too numerous to mention here but they are significant. Other problems with having children are sleepless nights,  constant worry,  increased stress,  depression, domestic isolation, relationship breakdown etc.

This article is not finished, there are several more comparisons to be made.

Fun Facts about Dogs

Shep the dog
Shep our dog.

Dogs evolved from an extinct wolf-like creature in Eurasia 40,000 years ago. Male dogs are called dogs, female dogs are called bitches and young dogs are called puppys. Some studies believe that dogs started to be domesticated 33,000 years ago. Dogs belong to a biological family called the Canidae, a member of this family is called a canid. This is the origin of the adjective “canine” which means “of or like a dog, relating to or characteristic of dogs”.

Dogs have a very good sense of smell. The part of a dogs brain that analyses smell is 40 times larger than a human’s and they can smell 1,000 to 10,000 times better than us. About one-third of a dog’s brain is dedicated to smell. The breed of dog with the best sense of smell is the bloodhound. A dog could detect a teaspoon of sugar if you added it to an Olympic-sized swimming pool full of water. Dogs can be trained to detect cancer in humans. Some dogs can tell if a human is about to have an epileptic fit. About 12 percent of the air that a dog breathes goes into a special area in the back of the nose that is dedicated to smelling. A dog can both sniff and breathe at the same time. Dogs know from which nostril a smell has entered. Dogs can use their sense of smell to gauge our emotions, they can smell fear, anxiety, even sadness this is due to the fact that they can smell hormones such as adrenaline. Police dogs can smell human bodies even when they are buried up to 3 metres in the ground.

Watercolors of Dogs
These watercolors  of dogs were painted by Helen. She is a talented artist and will paint dogs if you send her a photo.  see her website here

Dogs see in colors of various shades of blue and yellow. If you want a dog to see things in a green background the best colour is blue. Humans generally see better than dogs but dogs see much better when there is low-light. Dogs cannot distinguish between red and green and these colours would appear as shades of grey to a dog.

Dogs like to chew bones but cooked bones and bones that can splinter such as cooked chicken bones should not be given to dogs. When dogs were evolving , bone marrow could sometimes form an important part of their diet. Dogs often bury bones so that they can dig them up at some moment in the future when they are hungry.

Chocolate is poisonous to dogs because it contains theobromine. A Labrador (around 30kg bodyweight) would probably die if it consumed more than ½kg of dark chocolate.

Dogs have a ligament in the neck which allows them to conserve energy while running long distances following scent trails with their nose to the ground. Many other species have a similar ligament and it is called a Paddywhack.

Although dogs have some sweat glands in their feet, their principal way of losing heat when they are too hot is by panting. When dogs have been doing a lot of exercise, they pant, it is not because they are out of breath like a human would be. Dogs have developed the method of losing heat by panting because sweating would not be very efficient due to all the fur. The normal body temperature of a dog is 38.3 to 39.2 degrees Celsius whereas human normal body temperature 37 degrees Celsius.

Female dogs can get pregnant when their bodies undergo changes which make them receptive to male dogs. This is called being on heat or in estrus. Male dogs know the female is on heat due to a smell emitted from the female dog. If the female is receptive, she will stand still and hold her tail to the side, a stance referred to as “flagging”. Most dogs go on heat every 6 months and estrus lasts between 7 and 18 days. When dogs copulate it is very normal for them to get stuck together and it may last for up to 45 minutes. Most vets recommend that bitches don’t get pregnant until the third estrus. Pregnancy can be prevented by spaying the female dog, this involves removing both the ovaries and the uterus. Dogs don’t go into the menopause and will continue to go on heat indefinitely unless they are spayed. Small and medium-sized dogs mostly have a gestation period of fifty to sixty days while larger breeds average sixty to sixty-five days. Dogs normally have between one to sixteen or even more puppies. It is not possible to know how many puppies a bitch will have just by looking at the pregnant bitch, the appearance can be very deceptive. Puppies are born deaf and cannot hear until they are about 21 days old. The young are born small, blind and helpless and require a long period of parental care.

 

Most dogs have 42 teeth. Corgi is Welsh for “dwarf dog.” Greyhounds can reach a speed of up to 45 miles per hour. Male dogs have a bone in their penis. The most popular bree of domestic dog in the US and the UK is the Labrador Retriever. The border collie or sheep dog is often considered to be the most intelligent breed of dog some of them have been trained to recognise the words for up to 1,000 objects and retrieved them by verbal command. Dogs can discriminate the emotional expressions of human faces.The largest breed of dog is the Irish Wolfhound. Dogs do not have an appendix. Dogs are all direct descendants of wolves. Wolves and dogs can mate to produce fertile offspring. A dog’s heart beats up to 120 times per minute, or 50% faster than the average human heartbeat of 80 times per minute.

If you ever go on holiday and you have a dog it may be necesary to put the dog in kennels.  An alternative to this is to get a dogsitter who will like in your house and look after the dog while you are away.  Click here for a website which can find you a dogsitter.  You can also apply to be a dogsitter and get free accommodation.  Click here for more info.