The first sign of maturity is the discovery that the volume knob also turns to the left.
~Jerry M. Wright
The den floor is covered with toys as the boys wrestle and roughhouse. Yelps of glee punctuate the air. But I don’t have any small children at my house.
My college kids are home with their dogs.
Adam is home with Brother, a young Spaniel mix, and Emily brought her rambunctious Puggle, Otto, home for a visit. As a result, the two old Chihuahuas who live with me have been transformed from gentle, sleepy pets to tiny warriors defending their turf.
The Chihuahuas snarl and snap as the college dogs gallop through the house like two frat boys on spring break. Stuffed toys are shredded, the white cotton scattered to every corner. Slimy rawhide bones squish under my feet while tennis balls bounce about, narrowly missing lamps and pictures on the wall.
I never gave Emily or Adam my permission to adopt dogs—but, of course, they didn’t ask. Both acquired their pets spontaneously. Emily called one Saturday to tell me she and her boyfriend were going to look at puppies, just for fun.
“That’s like going to a bakery to look at cookies,” I told her.
An hour later she walked up my front sidewalk, a tawny, black-faced Beagle-Pug mix in her arms.
Adam’s dog arrived late at night while his reclusive neighbors eluded their enemies and skipped bail. Before they slipped out of the apartment parking lot they knocked at Adam’s door and handed him a leash; the black dog was almost invisible in the dark. “We’re moving and can’t take him with us,” they said.
The next day I received an e-mail from Adam with a warning, “Don’t get too attached.” He told me about the dog and enclosed a grinning photo of himself and a serious-looking Spaniel he named “Brother.” I had seen that smile on Adam’s face before. He was attached.
Emily and Adam grew up with the Chihuahuas. They loved to play with their pets but rarely noticed an empty water bowl and didn’t seem to hear when the dogs barked to be let in or out. Occasionally, “a puppy” showed up on their Christmas lists, but they never seemed too disappointed when one didn’t turn up on Christmas morning.
They both adjusted well to the responsibilities of college life and never implied that pet dogs would make their lives complete.
I was concerned that my son, whose bank account often hovered at $1.86, couldn’t afford a pet. I knew that universities and animal shelters dreaded semester end when cats and dogs often were abandoned. I also knew other parents of college students who inherited pets that didn’t work out as college roommates.
I need not have worried.
“Do you have pet insurance for the Chihuahuas?” Adam asked, on his first visit home with Brother. He was stunned to learn that his single mother of three children, two in college, did not have pet insurance.
He already had taken Brother to the vet for his shots and had him neutered for $35 at an animal clinic for low-income pet owners. With his monthly allowance from me and a part-time job, his income fell well within their range.
When we took Brother on walks, Adam was careful to keep him out of the street. Brother stayed near Adam without a leash, just a whistle stopped any wandering. When we came inside, Adam gently plucked stickers and bits of leaves from Brother’s fur.
Was this the same boy who left baby Chloe crying herself to sleep in our garage just months earlier? He was Chloe’s father for a day as an assignment in a high school child development class. A battery-powered baby, Chloe sounded her realistic cry when she was hungry or wet. When Adam’s efforts failed to stop the crying he stashed Chloe in the garage and closed the door.
I had another worry about Emily’s pet. She and her boyfriend bought the Puggle together. Emily was the noncustodial parent, her apartment didn’t allow pets.
My youngest son asked the question that hung in the air.
“Who will get the dog when they break up?”
“I don’t think they plan to break up,” I said.
I was very fond of Emily’s boyfriend, but I wasn’t quite ready for the implications of joint pet ownership.
I watched as they raised Otto together, training him to sit and stay, buying him toys and nursing him through stomachaches. Together they taught him to nudge a bell by the apartment door when he needed to go outside. David wrestled with him on the floor, Emily bought him a turquoise and lime green Vera Bradley leash for their long walks. I don’t think David liked the leash but I admired his silence on the matter.
They beamed with pride when they brought Otto to my house for visits, in spite of his battles with the Chihuahuas and tendency to munch on my zinnias and crash through my bed of perennials.
The college dogs quickly warmed up to me; they could see that I was the leader of this pack, but their loyalty was to their owners. When Adam left my house, Brother sat by the door, sad-faced, until he returned. Otto slept at the foot of Emily’s bed when she visited and gave a low growl when I opened her door to wake her.
I’ve read that maturity is defined as “the ability to put another person’s needs first.” I would add dogs to that definition. Somewhere between tripping over the empty water bowl and her first years of college, my daughter learned to interrupt her own sleep to take her dog outside on cold mornings. Adam’s bank account still hovers dangerously low, but Brother is well-fed, groomed and medicated against fleas.
Last fall Emily received an engagement ring carefully attached to Otto’s collar. He was dressed in a top hat and bow tie for the occasion. Her new husband, David, is a welcome addition to our family.
Sometimes it can be hard for a mother to acknowledge that her children are growing up and starting their own lives. It took two youthful and well-cared-for college dogs to convince me that my children have taken giant steps to an important milestone—maturity.
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