Pet Ownership - A dog's life

Owning a pet can enrich your lifestyle, particularly if you are single and live alone. Research has shown that a pet can help to reduce blood pressure and lower anxiety. The bond and relationship that is build up between both pet and owner can help to raise the good feeling hormones, notably serotonin and dopamine. No wonder pet such as dog is considered man's best friend.

You always have to be mindful that you are making a lifetime commitment when you bring a pet home. Have you heard the phrase ' To you it's just a dog but to the dog you are his everything'. Dog ownership comes with total responsibility to the upkeep and well being of the pet's entire life. Being a pet owner can be quite challenging and at same time rewarding too.

I have been living with my Pomeranian pet dog for well over 15 years. He was just barely 2 months old and weights a mere 300gram when he became a member of the family. Today he is an old dog of ripe old age, slow and clumsy but albeit contented and happy with his life.

It was not that easy and smooth sailing in terms of caring for his well being though. It takes a lot of patience to clean up the mess that the pet created during the weekdays while I am away at work. At times after a hard day's work and reaching home in the late evening feeling completely exhausted and tired, the last thing on my mind was to spend another half an hour or more to bring it out for a stroll and clean up its living quarters.

Interestingly, the repetitive tasks of bringing out the dog for a walk, cleaning up and bringing it for the annual vaccination and other health checkout becomes routine and mundane so much so that I don't feel its bothering me at all.

Time sure flies. With advancement of age comes the deterioration of health. Gone are the days where the flurry doggie jumps around and play with toys. Nowadays he's quite withdrawn, quite and moves slowly.

Muffin suffers from cataract in one eye and had to be on medication for heart inflammation for the rest of its life. As a matter fact the vet mentioned that he's the oldest pet dog he had ever treated in the Animal Specialist Center.