How did a puppy appear in our plans?

So further to those puppy pics...whoops here's another one...how did we get here?

I’m not sure how it happened, but we’re getting a dog.

My 14-year-old son has been campaigning for months for a canine familiar. I found it very hard to believe that this boy, his preferred location his bedroom, curtains shut even in summer, attention focused firmly on PC (mainly scanning Reddit for cute pooch pics) or playing Radiohead on bass guitar, would be instantly transformed into a paragon of active and responsible dog ownership if a puppy were to enter the house.

My youngest son isn’t really bothered if we get a dog or a hamster really, it’s just degrees of size to him. As long as it will sit and watch him play Minecraft, he’ll be happy. My partner wasn’t that bothered either, apart from quite liking the idea that having a dog to walk would mean that he could get away from the house when he needed to think about stuff, like why Luis Suarez is such a flawed genius.

The cats were also a major consideration; one is a tightly-wound, emotionally fragile and pretty queen of a female, a bit like Marilyn Monroe, and the other one is a contentedly portly ginger boy with a laid back vibe about him. I don’t think he’d mind that much, as long as the dog didn’t eat his food or lie on his spot on the bed.

As for me, I thought that getting a dog would just mean that I had something else to clean up after and feed that didn’t say thank you or buy me wine.

Then one night, a documentary on how all-round magnificent dogs are appeared on telly. As it wasn’t Game of Thrones or football-based, I didn’t think my partner would be paying much attention. But as I bustled around picking up socks and pants, I realised that all three of the boys were transfixed.  So I sat down and watched too.

Dogs are amazing! Of course there’s those stupid little hairy poos on legs sported in the handbags of birds off TOWIE, but when you get down to the nitty-gritty of it, dogs are pretty awesome. We watched, weeping silently, at the story of a yellow Labrador that had literally brought his owner, a war vet who had withdrawn so far into himself he couldn’t speak or go out, back to life. We gazed open-mouthed at the incredible story of a rescue dog who saved the life of an elderly woman who had got lost one night in a forest after getting off at the wrong bus stop and had fallen and lain tangled in brambles for three days. There’s more to them than doggy smell and slobbery faces, I thought.

Then something deeper stirred, which I haven’t really acknowledged until now. I actually do want something else to look after and love. Despite moaning constantly about being an educated woman, reduced to the status of a household drudge thanks to the acute laziness of my all-male immediate family, I do want something else to nurture, and protect. The fact is that the dog will probably still be lolloping around the house after my boys have left home. Then what will I do? He’ll fill a hole in the empty nest I’m dreading even now.

So we’ve found one, and he’s moving in in June. Our lives will never be the same again. I can’t wait.

(This blog by me originally appeared on Beteenus.com, a fantastic place for parents of teenagers to come together and laugh, cry and support each other through the hormone years.)