fuck off, dog moms.

It is a special kind of misogyny that tells moms to share a day MEANT for them with people (straight white woman?) who have placed their whole identity on a dog and a Rae Dunn coffee mug from TJ Max that says BEST DOG MOM. It is so comfortable (natural even!) to just take the day and then shame the mom who points this out. I’m sorry, I love your dog, I do, I want to pet him when you bring him to Home Goods. I probably also love you somewhat, even in this moment because I’m wildly hormonal at two months postpartum, and yet I am lovingly imploring you to fuck off. I will not bemusedly take the crusts of this day and let you eat the good parts just because it looks like something you might also want. You get Pet Appreciation Day (and every other day in our society that loves dogs and hates actual children who grow outside the womb). Until you’ve endured 80% of the grab bag of parenting I’m about to describe, you need to sit down and back away from your dog’s instagram for a day

I don’t have stretch marks from my dog, nor stitches in my perineum that a surgeon had to piece back together. I didn’t throw up for a year before my dog arrived, ripping me in half such that the hospital staff had to weigh the towels of my blood they mopped up from the floor. I don’t quarterly have to reassess and purchase a seasonally appropriate wardrobe for my dogs. I don’t get in trouble with old people at Home Depot for dressing my dog in the “wrong” gendered clothes. I haven’t had to administer sunscreen to my dog. When buying my dog’s snow socks, I didn’t get hung up on a pair of dog shoes that lights up and think about another dog haver’s telling me she fears buying light up shoes in case another dog shoots up her dog’s school and her dog needs to hide.  I’ve never shared a document on the notes app with my partner chronicling every ML of sustenance my dog ate and every time my dog peed or pooped for three months straight. I’ve never been shamed for not body-feeding my dog. I didn’t have panic attacks on my drives to work after I had my dog such that I had to quietly sing myself the alphabet until my tunnel vision subsided. I have never been so sleep deprived from my dog’s sleep schedule that I’ve forgotten the order of the alphabet as I sing it quietly to myself in the car while having a panic attack. I’ve never been so viscerally uncomfortable with someone petting my new dog that I’ve forbidden visitors from my house until my dog is vaccinated because I’d rather look more insane about vaccination than simply having a very common mental illness due to my dog’s new arrival. I’ve never lost a potential job because I have a dog. I’ve never been asked if I plan to still work when I get a dog. I’ve never been asked who’s watching the dog when I’m out. I’ve never been told I am too old to get another dog. I’ve never been told I look great for having just gotten a dog. I’ve never told someone I was in the process of getting a dog, and then been cornered about whether I have a partner and “where” he is. I’ve never had to get a dog birth certificate or ask the canine social security administration for a social security card for my dog. Dog health insurance isn’t mandatory. I don’t have to explain the concept of death to my dog or why my dog doesn’t have certain family members other dogs have who he might meet at the outdoor Montessori dog school that costs thousands of dollars to attend. I don’t have to get into the weeds about teaching bodily consent and trusting your gut to my dog, who is generally allowed to just bite people.  My dog will never be the subject of a DCFS investigation. My dog will never need to learn to drive or be taught how to safely interact with a cop or be begged to imbibe safely when he attends dog parties. My dog, whose bodily autonomy is so nonexistent that he can never impregnate another dog, will never make me a dog grandma with another dog who may want to take my dog grandchildren to her dog parents’ for every holiday.

And that is not to say I have not historically behaved like a mad millennial dog haver (don’t say owner).  I do have scars from my petty chihuahua. On my face. So does my spouse. On his face. In two areas, hidden by his beard. We still love him, perhaps even more because we are masochists (which perhaps is also why we fiercely love being parents to actual human children). I do outfit my greyhound in seasonally appropriate HoundTees, shipped from Australia. A sizable portion of our income has gone to all of their medical needs: the removal of all the grey’s decaying teeth, surgery to fix a torn dog-version-of-an-ACL for the chihuahua who barked so hard at our annoying neighbors that he ripped his muscle, meds for the chihuahua’s underperforming thyroid (a mommy and me condition apparently), the chihuahua’s insulin (administered twice daily) and prescription food (wet and dry; the stew, not the loaf!), the low-sugar chewy bones we have to give the chihuahua to convince him to let us into our bedroom at night with no violence. The chihuahua has never been fully house-trained and is now incontinent. I’ve cried wondering if the grey misses the puppies she gave birth to when she was abused at the racetrack. She has her own kiddie pool, embroidered floral collars, four dog beds, two sofas, and countless furry blankets.

I’m not saying that people who are comfortable publicly calling themselves “Dog Moms” should never refer to themselves as dog parents. I didn’t, but if that fills you with joy; i am not the joy police. I’m just saying you can’t have this one specific day that was devised by an activist to specifically highlight all of the arduous labor that the role of Mother assumes.

And, in direct response to a specific fight I had on this topic last year, I’m not convinced the hypothetical infertile dog mom is not just a bad faith argument designed to shame the complaining mom (we should never complain!). While my brush with secondary infertility was brief, I don’t think if I ached for biological motherhood that I would feel particularly comforted by celebrating my relationship to my dog. It reminds me of the times I’ve explained a particular trauma to an uninitiated person and they’ve turned to me with the most asinine toxic positivity bullshit that made me question the value of our friendship. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but I am suspicious. You know who you are.