4 Reasons Why Buying a Puppy Turns You Into a Monster

In December, my girlfriend and I got a puppy, a Shih Tzu, from her coworker, who’d bought two Shih Tzus that had never shown any interest in each other until surprise!  Puppies!  Neither of us had owned our own dog before, and we were looking forward to years of adorable adorableness.

What I didn’t know is that it would change me.  In fact, it would turn me into exactly the kind of person I freaking loathe.  Me three months ago would have punched current me in the face so hard I’d go back in time to appear in front of Muhammad Ali, who would punch me out of disgust.  And it happened in three months.  Consider this article an abject warning.

4) You Can Actually Discuss the Subject of Poop Knowledgeably

It used to baffle me that people with kids could actually have long, involved discussions about baby feces.  They’re turds, not wines.  A turd smells like a turd.  Yes, I suppose there are subtle differences depending on what you eat, but they’re kind of irrelevant in light of the fact that it’s a turd.

How little I knew.

Puppies take dumps on the floor.  It just happens.  They do it a lot at first.

One day, I realized that I could literally find my puppy’s turds by smell.  I knew what her crap smelled like.  I could hunt down turds in my apartment.

This is not a superpower I want.  I don’t want to have spent so much time around dogshit that I can detect it instantly, but now that I’ve got it, I can smell it anywhere I go.  So if Superman ever needs somebody to find dogshit, apparently I’m the guy.

“So, can you smell anything else?”  “No, my supersmell senses only apply to dogshit.”  “…boy, genetics just totally ass-raped you, huh?”  “You’re a dick, Superman.”

3) You Become One of Those Annoying People On Facebook

Getting a puppy unfortunately coincided with, a month or two earlier, my getting a smartphone that can instantaneously upload pictures to the Internet.  Everybody who gets a smartphone goes through a period of being a total annoying bastard: constantly updating their status on Facebook, uploading pictures, whipping out their phone at the least opportunity, even if it kinda sucks like mine.  Combine this with getting a cute animal and you have something that can destroy worlds.

Sure, I never uploaded many photos in the first place, but out of thirteen photos, ten involve my dog.  Of the remaining three, two are of cats and the last is of my pocket.  I have the Facebook album of a fifty-five year old woman.

I’m exaggerating a bit, as I also post things like my FunnyCrave articles on my Wall (and if you’re reading this, you should also do that.  Now.  NOW, DAMMIT!), but seriously, if I’ve posted a photo in the last six months, it’s of the dog, whose face you can’t even see because she’s entirely black.  And it’s always of the dog doing something cute, too.  I might as well just start stitching  samplers.

2) You Become One Of Those Annoying Morning People

Shih Tzus combine two traits that make them difficult to housebreak: they’re stubborn, and they have bladders the size of thimbles.  This also makes them superb alarm clocks, because they can wake you up every three to four hours, on the dot, because they’ve got to take a leak.

As a result, where I used to go to bed at midnight like a cool person, I now go to bed at nine pm like a grandma.  Why?  Because the lack of sleep was driving me insane.  We tried crate training and discovered over several weeks that a small dog really can, if it tries, stay up all night screaming, crying, and rattling its cage, for several weeks, sleeping during the day.  So we quit, and kept her on the bed, where, aside from the occasional nip, we can actually get some sleep.

Even better, around 6am, she’s always hungry, so she wakes me up, mostly because she get her tongue all the way up my nose and has found it to be an effective method.  I found myself passing out earlier and earlier at night until my usual schedule of midnight to noon had somehow become 9pm to 6am.  Sometimes even 5am.

Have I mentioned that I hate morning people?  My parents were morning people and as a teenager it used to drive me insane.  Yeah, I had to go to school, and it was government mandated I drag my ass in there by 7am, but once college rolled around, I deliberately booked my classes to start at noon so I could get some goddamn sleep finally.  Part of the reason I hated my series of office temp jobs was getting up at 6 to be at some cube by 9 doing work I could have easily done at home, waking up at 8:45.

And now I am one.  I mean, I still hate morning people like you wouldn’t believe, but I’m still up and awake before the sun, and by 9am, I’ve been working several hours.  I’m getting things done!  I’m being productive!  Damn dog!

1) You Become Boring

Part and parcel of that whole “early to bed, early to rise makes a man an annoying prick who needs to shut the hell up” is that you can no longer party like you used to, partially because of exhaustion and partially because of this stupid responsibility.

For me, that’s just sad, because I barely partied in the first place.  I partied so mild Andrew W.K. would have beaten me in disgust.  And now even that’s by the boards, because I’ve got the puppy to think about.  If I’m out and my girlfriend is staying home, I have to be home by a certain time because otherwise the puppy won’t settle down and go to sleep, thus keeping her awake.  If we’re both out, we’ve got to get home to let the puppy outside.

Granted, part of this is just the soul-rending cries of sadness and anguish she can unleash once she realizes you’re leaving the house.  Seriously, it’s like you killed the puppy’s puppy.  I’ve literally taken to disguising getting dressed and going outside by doing it slowly and then locking her up before she can cry.  I’ve turned into a total wuss.

But the other part of it is a sense of responsibility.  After all, the puppy is totally dependent on us, and being adorable makes it all worth it.  Doesn’t?  Doesn’t it, Daddy’s little girl?  See, here’s a picture, isn’t she cute?

Wait, what the hell am I doing?  What the hell is wrong with me?  WHAT HAVE I BECOME?!