You can dress them up in humiliating getups and sometimes forget to walk and feed them — still, when it comes to our kids’ best friends, pets are high on the list
Timmy had Lassie, Charlie Brown had Snoopy, and Dorothy had Toto. The bond between kids and their pets is undeniably special. To a child, a pet can be a friend, a sidekick and a member of the family.
Our neighborhood is full of pint-sized neighbors who have big love for their creatures, and while we could have summed it up, we thought it best to let these kids tell you in their own words what makes their pets so special.
Kids: Julia Woltjen, 7, and Lucas Woltjen, 5
Pets: Lola, the tortoiseshell cat; Jackson, the German shepherd mix
Who says cats don’t like water? “We turn on the sink just a little bit, and she bites it and licks it,” Julia says. “And she plays with it with her paw,” adds Lucas. “And she likes to drink ice water out of a cup. Once she drank my water, and she got cat cooties in it, so I didn’t drink any more.”
Whatever Lola wants: “She follows me upstairs and sleeps on my bed,” Julia says. “She’s fluffy, and she’s pretty cute also.”
And then there’s Jackson: “He doesn’t do any tricks, but he does something funny — he chases squirrels,” Lucas says. But Lucas says Jackson never catches any: “They just run up trees.” Julia’s favorite thing about her dog is “when he comes and runs up to me when we come back from trips. It tells me that he loves me, and he likes me a lot.”
Kids: Natalie Rachel, 7, and Jake Rachel, 11
Pets: Austin and Elle, Airedale Terriers
It must be summer: When Anna Brinker decided to breed her champion Airedale Terrier, Belle, she invited her great-niece and –nephew to help raise them. “We went over there one day, and she told us she was ‘in season,’” Natalie says, “and season is whenever it’s really hot, and she’s probably going to have puppies.”
The miracle of birth: Both Jake and Natalie watched as the puppies were born. “I saw eight of them,” Jake says. “I only saw seven of them,” Natalie says, explaining that she had to rush over from a soccer party. As each puppy emerged, Jake wrote down the time, its weight and any markings on the whelping chart.
Playing favorites: The kids attached a different color of yarn to each puppy, and both chose a favorite: Jake picked orange girl “because my favorite college is Texas, and they’re orange,” and Natalie picked lavender girl “because I’m the youngest child in my whole family and she was the youngest pup, so we had a lot in common.”
Saying goodbye: After six weeks of washing the puppies, cleaning their cages, and playing with them, all but two were adopted. “She didn’t want to keep all of them, or then she’d have probably, like, 11 dogs, so she didn’t want that much,” Natalie says. Brinker did keep Jake’s favorite, orange girl, now called Elle. Lavender girl was adopted, but Natalie is warming up to black boy, Austin. “He’s a really nice boy, and he doesn’t bite and doesn’t jump a lot, and he’s a really calm dog, but sometimes if he hasn’t seen that person in a while he starts jumping on them, so he’s like a guard dog.”
Kid: Brooke Lehr, 19 months
Pet: Piper, the French bulldog
Bringing up babies: The Lehrs adopted a French bulldog, known for their gentleness, because they knew they wanted to start a family. “Piper just loved Brooke from day one. It was so easy,” Leslie Lehr says. “Piper is Baby No. 1, and Brooke is Baby No. 2. They’re both just pampered little princesses.”
A few choice morsels: Piper sleeps with the Lehrs, but every morning when they wake up, they ask, “Where’s the baby?” and Piper dashes into the nursery to see Brooke. But when Brooke settles into her highchair, Piper doesn’t need any prompting. “Piper knows she’s going to get a few hors d’ouevres that fall on the ground,” Lehr says.
Yours, mine and ours: Piper and Brooke can most often be found playing side by side on the floor, sharing their toys. “There are dog teeth marks on Brooke’s toys, and if it’s doggie toys they’re playing with, they’re both gnawing on them,” Lehr says. “I gave up trying to separate them.”
