For those of you who are unfamiliar with some of the more personal aspects of my life, I lost my dog Rooney about three and a half months ago.
He was an 11–12-year-old lab mix that my wife and I rescued in the latter half of his life, and even though we only had him for about six years, we created a lifetime of memories with him.
Even nearly four months later, I still find myself thinking about the hole he left in our lives and there are times when doing even mundane tasks around the house reminds me of him.
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I say all of this to underscore that I still probably haven’t completely gotten over having to put him down back in March, so when talks started to commence in recent weeks about potentially looking for a new dog, I met those conversations with mixed emotions.
The first time my wife mentioned thinking about “the next dog,” my face scrunched in disgust.
How could she even consider replacing Rooney so soon?
Then I thought a little more about it and considered my two-year-old son, who only just started to develop a bond with Rooney right before we lost him.
I got even more heartbroken imagining my son falling in love with the new dog, as the memory of Rooney slowly faded from his mind as he aged.
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Not to mention the fact that we still have another dog, Elle, who will probably have a full-on stroke if/when we bring a young, energetic puppy into our increasingly crowded house.
I clearly wasn’t handling the suggestion well, but I slept on it, and I’m not sure if it’s just because my wife has worn me down, but I’m starting to see another side to this whole thing.
Getting another dog doesn’t mean forgetting Rooney entirely, and although there is still some scarring from losing him, the pain has been dulled significantly over the last few months.
And does it really make a difference if we wait another three months, six months, a year, before we get another dog?
Part of me says yes, but part of me says no.
My wife and I are opposites when it comes to change and sentimentality.
She’s very Type-A, and is almost eager to embrace change. While I tend to be more reflective and resist change unless it’s smacking me right in the face.
Perhaps that’s the crux of this whole thing. I don’t think my wife loved Rooney any less than I did, I just think it’s in her nature to move on quicker than I do.
I think having a young child changes the calculus as well.
If we were childless, I’d imagine the timeline to get a new dog would be elongated, but I know my wife is keen on the idea of getting our son a dog of his own so they can “grow up together.”
All of this still warrants the simple question: When is it “appropriate” to get a new dog after losing your four-legged best friend?
Additionally, is there ever an appropriate time? Or do you just have to “feel it out?”
It’s a complex situation that I’m not sure has the correct answer, and yet here we sit at the crossroads of it all.
These are the things they don’t teach you about parenting, but we have to learn on the fly anyway.
C’est la vie.
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