Your kids are begging for a pet. Your husband has opinions. And you’re the one who knows — deep down — that you’ll end up doing all the work.
So should you say yes? This episode helps you think it through honestly — no guilt trips, no pressure, just real mom wisdom.

In this episode, I walk you through the questions to ask before making this decision.

We talk about:
* The honest pros and cons of getting a pet with kids at home
* How to assess whether your family is actually ready
* What most families don’t think about before they say yes
* Spiritual lessons kids can learn from caring for an animal

If you liked this episode, you’ll also enjoy:
 Our New Family Pet: A Real Catholic Mom Life Update
 Real Mom Life: Teens, Homeschool, and Winter Routines
 Why Your Kids Should Misbehave: A Catholic Parenting Truth
       
Whether your answer is yes, no, or not yet — you’ll feel good about it after this episode. And if you want a community of Catholic moms who help you make good decisions (about pets and everything else) — that’s Mary’s Heart Martha’s Order. catholicmomcalm.com/marysheart

So just really asking yourself today, where are you at? Are we adding something else to your plate? If we add this to your plate, should we take something else off your plate? Right? You have all the things that you’re responsible for, making dinner, cleaning the house, thinking about everyone’s birthday, likely some amount of schooling stuff, driving. 

And I think pets are so wonderful. I think that they are such a great opportunity for kids to learn responsibility and man, there are just seasons where I am a no. I am a hard no. And I’ll get into specifics about different kinds of pets in a minute, but I wanna do the general questions first. So it’s just kind of where we at in this season of life is question number one. 

The second question is, how much is this going to cost? Because of course, children aren’t thinking about that. They’re not thinking about taking animals to the vet. They’re not thinking about, you know, pet accessories and cages or, you know, when we had a bearded dragon, it ate these little. I’m just gonna call them bugs. 

Okay. These bugs. And we had to buy them all the time. And kids just don’t necessarily think about that. But you need to think about that. How much money is this going to cost? 

And then separate from. Is this a good season of life to get a pet at all? I like to ask myself, who is gonna be doing the cleaning? Which is different. It might be a good season of life to get a pet. I feel like, yes, we could handle that right now. But then a separate question is who is gonna be doing the cleaning and can they do that? 

For example, when we got the bearded dragon, my daughter was old enough and mature enough and responsible enough to clean it. But when it came down to it, there were a few things that actually she just wasn’t tall enough or physically capable of doing, and I had to help her. And I didn’t realize that. 

I didn’t realize that because she was such a great kid and I thought, yep, she’s gonna do it. And she really did everything that she could do. But there were some things that just had to be done by an adult and. I was gonna be the adult that did that, and that may not be a problem, but let’s just go eyes wide into the situation.

Let’s go eyes wide open into the situation to ask ourselves, who is gonna do the cleaning? You know, if your puppy poops all over your rug in the middle of the night, or if your pet rat gets out and chews something up. I don’t know. I’m just trying to think of all the messes the pets make where you’re like, somebody has got to deal with that and it’s unexpected. Who’s going to do that?

Kind of adjacent to that is where is it gonna live and how is it going to smell? My daughter for a long time really wanted to ferret, but ferrets smell really bad. They’re like housing situation wherever they live. And I just said, listen kiddo, it’s just always gonna be a no. I love you, you’re responsible. I think it could be fine, but I’m just a no on ferrets, even though they’re very, very cute. 

So where is the thing gonna live and how does that smell? Is it in a small space? ’cause you know, smelly things in a small space are really bad. Whereas, you know, a smelly thing may be in a garage. Depending on whether that’s temperature appropriate or not, that smell might be spread out a little bit more.

So where is the thing gonna live and how does it smell? Okay. I think those are really the major questions that I ask. Okay. But let’s talk about puppies in particular for a second, because the email I got was from somebody who got a puppy specifically, and because I was a dog trainer for so long, people do often ask me this question.

And here’s just how I feel about puppies having trained so many of them. Having a puppy is like having a baby, okay? If I said to you, Hey, right now, would you like to give birth to a baby and change your family to that degree? 

That is what adding a puppy to your life is like. They don’t sleep through the night for a while. They’re extremely destructive. They whine, they bark, they wanna be let out at all random times they’re going to pee in your house. There is a way to have zero accidents and I could tell you that way and you’re just not gonna do it. And that’s fine. 

When I would train people how to do that with their puppies, I fully knew that they weren’t gonna do it all the time. I just said, Hey, this is the zero accidents way. If you fall this way, you’ll have zero accidents. But then I would tell them, you know, you’re not really gonna do this all the time, and that’s okay. Just know that if the accidents start happening, you go back to the zero accidents way. 

So that happens first, right? Where they’re like, you’re potty training them. And it’s maddening. If you’re a mom and you’re trying to take care of a bunch of kids. Having something pee on your carpet is just it’s terrible. It feels so invasive. It feels like a huge violation, even though you know it’s little, even though you totally get what’s going on, but immediately you will just be like, wow, you have no soul and I have no time for this right now.

Especially if you were kind of coerced maybe into getting this puppy and it was not your idea, the. Next thing that’s gonna happen is the puppy is going to get older and you’ll have a false sense of, oh, this is a little bit manageable now, but the worst time of having a puppy happens somewhere between like six and nine months.

That’s when a puppy is really like their teenage years. So they go from being kind of cute and they sit and they lay down and they do a couple of these basic obedience things, and you think you’re in the clear and then they’re like, wait a minute. Maybe I don’t have to listen to these humans. 

And that’s when they start getting into the trash or chewing on the couch, and being really destructive. I mean, really, it’s just like a teenager and you’re gonna go, oh my goodness, what have we done? Why did we do this to ourselves? 

Now, usually by that time, we’re pretty in love with them, so we tend to keep them. I see a lot of people get rid of their puppies around three months old, so they haven’t even quite gotten to the teenager stage yet, but. That’s because by three months old, they’re still just destructive and they’re just, you’re really realizing we just cannot do this as a family. 

And it was interesting. I knew I was gonna record this podcast, but a good friend of mine just texted me and said exactly that. They were like, we got this adorable dog. It was our first dog and we just did not realize how much work it’s going to be. And so they were asking if anybody wanted this cute golden doodle puppy. I think she was three or four months old.

And I have a lot of respect for this family. They’re just a family that I kind of look up to. They have older kids than mine, and one of the things I really respect is how they protect their time and their sanity.

And they say no to a lot of things in order to have a really strong family culture and have, you know, kind of a slow feeling pace of life. And so it did not surprise me that they tried out the puppy and went, whoa, this is taking us away from. Too many of the things that we value a lot and we don’t value this as much, and so we’re not gonna keep doing it.

And I think that is a better decision. Be prepared to give your puppy away if you get a puppy, and it is not a good. Season of life for you to have a puppy in. The good news is it’s usually pretty easy to get rid of puppies, especially if they’re not grossly bad. They just need a little bit more training.

You just post that in your mom’s group and you just say, Hey, we have a cute puppy. We just turn hot dog. People needs a little bit of training and somebody usually is pretty willing to carry the baton and take that puppy off your hands and then they get to discover the same thing. But usually that second family, they get. They’re aging the dog up even more. And so it tends to stabilize out with the second family. 

So I don’t know, as much as I love puppies and you know, I love them so much, I am very, very hesitant to get one. And we got a puppy, I don’t know if you remember, but we got a little border collie puppy. Oh, she was so cute. What was that like two years ago? Maybe three years ago. 

And my husband was like, oh, I don’t know if we should get a puppy, but we hadn’t had a dog. And I was, I just felt ready and. Anyway, I had a really cute Holy Spirit story about how this, I wanted this puppy, and then she wasn’t available and then suddenly she was, and I feel like there was a special feast day or something.

Anyway, so we get this puppy and actually, I realized, and I hadn’t thought of this because we live on five acres, so in my mind we had plenty of room for this dog, but we didn’t have a fence, and I’d never had a puppy or trained a puppy without having a fence. And so because of that, someone had to take her. Out every single time. 

In the beginning she’s just aloof and you just, you know, they potty and they don’t run away. But as they get bigger, then they start running away. And so you have to leash them every time. And we weren’t gonna build a fence because that’s very expensive in the country. And so it was just so much more work than I thought.

And we really seriously talked about getting rid of her. And I am a literal dog trainer. Okay. I know how to do all the things, but I was. Building this business. And we had just moved here and there were a lot of things going on. Yeah. The kids were much younger and the kids told me they were gonna help me and they really didn’t help that much.

And, partly it was because they were just too little. So they had good intentions and we had been really seriously talking about getting rid of her, my husband and I, which was devastating to me because I loved her so much. She was just amazing border colly dog. But I also was just getting to the place where I was like, you know what? I just have other things that are more important than this dog and I’m not giving her the time that she needs. 

And actually right near the time that we were talking about that she ended up getting hit by a car. Which is super sad. and it was on our property and one of the kids was holding her leash and she pulled hard against the leash and the leash just popped outta the kid’s hand. And then somebody was coming so slowly, the slowest up our driveway and she just straight ran in front of this guy’s tires. 

So, you know, it was nothing on him. You know, we were all standing around. It was really horrible. But I remember thinking. Normally I would be so devastated and I really ended up feeling relief because that is how hard that puppy made our lives.

And so it is just not a small thing. If you would be willing to be handed an infant right now, then you are ready to have a puppy. If not, then just be like, no kids. I know better than you and I’m sorry, and you cannot have a puppy. Okay.

Recently, we did actually, I told this story in the podcast too. We did actually adopt a 4-year-old golden Doodle, and that has been mostly lovely. She does dig a little bit in the backyard, and my husband is not a big fan of that, but I mean, we have five acres and we live in the country, so I don’t really care about her digging in the yard. 

And that was not a big enough deal to him. For us to get rid of her. We really loved her. She’s very lovely. not the sharpest tool in the shed going from a border clue to a golden doodle. She’s kind of a little dumb, dumb, but she’s sweet and she cuddles, and that’s all I really wanted. So we’ve been really happy with her. 

So if you wanna get a dog, I’m a big fan of getting a two, three, 4-year-old dog. And just wait, just watch Craigslist and wait for someone who’s giving a dog away for a really good reason. So this family. Was giving the dog away because one of their kids developed an allergy to her saliva. ’cause she’s a hypoallergenic dog. She doesn’t shed and that’s a great reason. 

They were devastated to give her away. She’s a very well-behaved dog. And so you just wait and look for a reason like that. Another time a dog came up that I was looking at and the husband had a job change and they were moving to Japan and like, that’s a great reason. We love this dog, but we’re not taking this dog to Japan, so we need a really good family. Who’s gonna take the dog? 

So the last thing I’ll say about dogs is that there are certain breeds that really do require a lot more vet expenses or medicine or treatments. Oddly enough, golden retrievers are notorious for that. They have a lot of ear problems. And so you end up having vet bills and it’s not, you know, $10,000. It’s like. Two to $500 a few times, but just know that’s a real thing. 

So I would research, you know, what medical issues do these dogs often have, and you see way less of that with mixed breed dogs. So I’m a big fan of mixed breed dogs because they have way less of that kind of inbred genetic stuff that the purebred dogs have.

And I think. We are all considering the doodles, any of the doodles, those are mixed breed dogs. I realize they’re, she, she mixed breeds and they’re selling them for a lot of money, but still it does what I’m talking about, which is like decreases the common medical challenges of poodles and golden retrievers and then you mix them and it’s better.

Okay, so we had a bearded dragon. I actually really loved that pet. What we fed them was gross that I could get over that. I really loved them and they just sit with you. So it’s really great for your bookworm kid or your Lego kid, like your nerdy, quiet introvert kid. Get them a beard of dragon. They’re super cool.

And the only reason we got rid of that was we were just at a time of our life where we were moving, we were moving pretty far and we just really didn’t wanna pack up the bearded dragon with us. And Rose was just a titch young. And we just ended up giving it to another super sweet homeschool girl before we moved.

So I would do that again. Don’t tell my children, I don’t wanna do that right now, but I would do that again. I really enjoyed having a bearded dragon, and in my opinion, they looked just like dragons without wings and that made me so happy. I loved it so much. Like I would hold her little ember and she was bright orange. They come in really cool colors. 

So I’m Team Bearded Dragon. I am not Team Hamster. They just, I don’t know, they were not great. We did not have a great experience with hamsters. I probably told this story too, but the day we moved here to Sandpoint, our sweet grandmotherly neighbor came over and said, in front of all of my children, I have some hamsters for free. Would you like them? 

And then just proceeded to give us two hamsters in all of their stuff and. Yeah, we just didn’t love them. They were smelly. They weren’t that cuddly. I mean, they weren’t feral. But they didn’t bite the kids, but they weren’t that into the kids either. And so we ended up giving those away. And that’s often what happens with hamsters. They just kind of go from homeschooling family to homeschooling family. 

So recently we did buy. Rats. And now we have seven rats. And I have to say they have been so delightful and entertaining. They do not smell bad. They’re very clean. I love them way more than hamsters.

My husband grew up with rats and I thought it was weird, but he said, no they’re really smart. You can train ’em to do things. And they just really like people and they really like each other. So I think we started with three and then we just kept adding them anyway. Now we have seven.

And my kids are just holding them all the time. They’re so sweet. They like hide in your sweatshirt. They go from person to person in the family, and they’re very friendly. They clean themselves all the time. So the rats themselves are very clean. And if you don’t, I mean, and we clean out their cage every two weeks. There’s bedding on the bottom of it. It’s pretty large. 

You can teach them tricks. We haven’t taught them a ton of tricks, but they’ve really bonded my kids. Each of them have one. The older kids and their rat really love them and they’re just funny. They do funny things, so I really recommend that as a pet too. And they’re $7, that’s the other thing, they’re $7 and they live for like two years.

So you’re just not really committed that long with a rat. I’ll let you know when the first one dies, how that goes with the kids and if they’re devastated or not. But we prepared them. We said, Hey, look, they die. 

So we’ve been really enjoying the rats. You have to get all the same gender and they all sleep together. It’s adorable. So when you open the door and you look in their cage, they’re all just like on top of each other sleeping. It’s so cute. 

We have a lot of chickens and the kids love holding them. They hold them when we get them as chicks and they hold them and really desensitize them to kids and then. They’re around our property a lot, but I wouldn’t consider them like snuggly pets in the same way that all these other pets I’ve mentioned are. 

I mean, our chickens all have names and they will let the kids pick them up and hold them. I mean, sometimes begrudgingly, but they will let them and the kids really enjoy them. But I don’t think they’re bonded in them quite the same way as I’ve seen with the bearded dragon and the rats and the dogs. 

We’ve never had cats because my husband is allergic, so I don’t have a lot of thoughts or opinions about that, but I would definitely go talk to cat people and I imagine that having kittens is probably the same as having a dog. That they’re very destructive and take way more time and energy than you think. 

So I just, this is the podcast that you just need for your like dose of reality. I have coached so many women in our program over the last four years on pets, and if I can catch ’em. Before they do it, I just have a real come to Jesus moment, like, are you really ready for that?

And sometimes they say yes, and sometimes they’re like, no, thank you. This really validated some of my concerns. And then sometimes I get them and the dog is three, four months and they’re pulling their hair out and I’m like, yep, that’s pretty normal. And you’re not doing anything wrong. It just does take a lot of time.

A lot of us remember having dogs in a fond way, but if you really think back, there was a person who spent a great deal of time with them. So my mom got me a border Collie when I was 12, and I just was obsessed with that dog and trained her all the time and walked her all the time. And she was such a great dog, but it was because I spent so much time, especially in that first year with her training her.

And the same thing with my second border Collie, which I got just a couple months before I met my husband and I just trained her all the time. And then continued to train her while I was dating him, and then after we got married, so she was so well trained before we had kids.

And I just realized that as a mom now I don’t have the time that’s necessary, or I’m just choosing not to spend it that way. To train them well enough to integrate them well into the family. If you have a 14-year-old kid who really wants a dog. I think that that’s fine. Just make sure that they know like, Hey, for a whole year you’re gonna train this dog. 

I might let a very mature 12-year-old get a dog, but same thing, I would just say, Hey, this is your dog, you’re gonna clean up after it. And I would make them watch a lot of training videos. Oh, Susan Garrett, that’s the name. Susan Garrett is the dog trainer I really like online. I would buy her dog training course and I’d say, Hey kid, you gotta watch all of this before we even bring the dog home. And then you gotta do all that. What she says. 

So pets are no pets. I mean, I really like pets. I like giving kids responsibility even if they blow it, like even if I know it’s gonna come back on me. For a lot of it, I still like them trying and cleaning up after them. I just, there have been times where I feel really open to that and then times where I do not just please listen to yourself, your gut reaction there.

Because I think you, you kind of know, you kind of know if it’s the right time or not. And then just beyond that, the kids are not the boss of you. Don’t let them whine or break you down into doing something that you know isn’t right for your family. There’s something about pets where we, like they ask enough and and they whine enough that we tend to just go fine and we give in.

And it’s so funny because we would never do that about anything else. Like imagine if they wanted to live in a different part of town and they just kept asking and kept asking and kept asking. You’re not like, fine I guess I will go find a house and we’ll move our family to that part of town.

We just don’t. Do that. But there’s something about the pet thing where if they want it enough and they whine enough, we give in even if it’s not the right thing for our family. And so I just wanna remind you, they’re not the boss of you. 

And if they’re asking too much, you can just say, Hey, you will not ask me again. If you ask me again, here’s gonna be the consequence. Like we are not getting a puppy. I appreciate that. You want one. I’m sorry that you don’t understand that. That isn’t a good thing for our family right now. I am in charge. I have made this decision. You may not ask me again

Which oddly enough I had to do with one of my girls recently about me having another baby. She kept asking me to have another baby. And I just said, honey, I really just don’t think we’re gonna have another baby, and I need you to stop asking me. And I explained, I said, listen, you know, we practice NFP and God can give us a baby at any time, but we’re not planning on it. 

So please, please stop asking me that or I’m gonna give you a consequence. I didn’t even have to tell her what the consequence would be. I mean, she’s old enough that she just understood that I really was saying, Hey, please, you, you just can’t ask me again. 

Okay. Reach out if you have any other questions. This is just a good episode to have on hand for all of us right now and for any of us in the future who are considering pets. 

I have decided to be on Instagram, so if you wanna go to Instagram, my handle is catholic mom calm. It’s always been, but I’ve never played the Instagram game. And I think this is so funny after doing that screen-less thing.

But the truth is I’ve already started doing it and it’s very compartmentalized and it’s part of my workday. So it actually hasn’t changed how much I use my phone. I’m just gonna schedule time Monday through Friday to post a reel and maybe interact a little bit. So do you interact with me? Because it will be me, it won’t be anybody else.  So I’ll reply to your comments and your dms and I’ll just do that once a day. 

I think it’s gonna be really fun. I have a lot of really great content coming out, and I have a lot of small courses that are coming out. We’ve had requests for that for a long time. Just mini courses to solve problems and kind of outside of our. Membership program and so we’re doing it and keep your eyes peeled. Those are coming and they’re gonna be fantastic. 

Alright, my friends, I’m praying for you. Please pray for me. Thank you so much for listening and have a blessed day.