My toddler son adores dogs. He is absolutely head-over-heels in love with any dog he meets.
My husband never had a dog growing up, but since we met he has told me how he always wanted a dog named Spot. (I was completely annoyed that he wanted to name his dog Spot because I thought it was completely unoriginal. I still hold to that argument.)
We thought about getting a puppy.
But...we're a military family! We want to live overseas and know that it can be a big hassle to get pets overseas as they need special shots and (depending on where you go) they have to be quarantined for several weeks. I know that when my husband deploys I want to be free to travel to see family without having an extra living being to worry about. The bottom line was that we knew we wanted to be 100% committed to a dog before we added one to the family and we aren't sure that it is the right time for us. Still I knew how happy dogs made my son and I wanted to capitalize on his excitement.
We found a compromise. We fostered a darling puppy for a couple weeks. He was, of course, dubbed Spot. A couple of weeks of fostering was just long enough to remind me that I am absolutely NOT ready to commit to a dog longterm this year. Whew. Between the puppy and the toddler I used an inordinate amount of paper towels those two weeks.
Spot has since found a forever home (and we've gone back to sleeping through the night). But our experience has made me wonder about pets and military life. Is it a good idea for military families to have pets?
A week or so before Spot arrived we acquired a Beta fish from a family PCSing overseas, which is just another example of pets and military life not being the best fit. Still, I would hate to tell my children that they could never have pets because of their dad's career choice. And having a pet may be comfort and constant in their lives that will routinely be "interrupted" by PCS and deployments.
So now I'm asking you: What have you decided about pets and military life? Do you have any advice for us??
