Get a dog, ruin your life – The Ferris State Torch

You actually can put a price on cuteness. Photo courtesy of MCT Campus

Let me paint you a picture. You are in your apartment, you finished your homework and are steeping your mint tea in a Super- girl themed mug. You look down at the floor, expecting to see a small animal at your feet and you gasp! You just realized you don’t own a dog! “Must get dog. Must get dog,” runs through your head at a mile a minute.

Stop. Look at yourself in the mirror, splash some cold water on your face and bring yourself back down to earth. I am here to tell you, do not get a dog. Let me repeat myself. Do NOT get a dog.

I have several friends that own dogs and I am sorry if this is hard to hear but I am the self titled voice of reason. I don’t care what your GPA is, how many student groups you run or if you own a small but successful landscaping business, buying a dog as a full- time student illudes me to believe you are a poor decision maker.

Let’s break it down. Dr. Race Foster and Dr. Marty Smith have written several books on pet care. For peteducation.com, they wrote about the cost of dog ownership. They claimed to have spent $1,977 for things like food, a crate, leashes, training and various other products and services in the first year of a dog’s life.

Foster and Smith also stated that people generally underestimate the cost of dog ownership. Don’t try and tell me that it’s a small price to pay for a best friend. I spend less than that on christianmingle.com and I have made plenty of friends.

Now if the price of dog ownership does not scare you away from making this mistake, maybe the allocation of time will. Think about how much time you will spend every day taking care of your new furry friend. I estimate that to maintain a healthy puppy you will spend an average of about 45 minutes a day walking, grooming and playing with the pup. This does not include trips to the vet or training classes. So, if you spend this time with your dog your opportunity cost may be working at a minimum wage job. If that is the case, you are sacrificing $1,283.62 over the academic year, provided you are using this time seven days a week for 30 weeks.

Another trend with dog ownership I personally see is getting a dog with a girlfriend or boyfriend. Do I even need to explain the issues with this? Breakups, gradu- ating, moving away, the list goes on and on. College relationships are unstable, everyone knows that. Throwing a dog into the mix makes for a cocktail of idiocy that I don’t want to try.

There will be plenty of time to get Fido when you are gainfully employed and have a stable home. You will appreciate your new little buddy so much more when you have the time and money to take care of it correctly. Or just get a cat. What ever happened to cats?