A challenging choice: dogs or children?

Yesterday I visited the family of my son’s Canadian friend Tyler. I was amazed to discover that they have 3 children, 3 dogs and a cat. I always thought that only people who do not have children at all can have so many animals, but that family was exception. Tyler’s mother Heather told me that she has never thought that such a thing can happen with her. When they bought a dog for their first child, the other children asked “Where are our dogs?”, and parents had to buy dogs to everybody. All the dogs had the same breed (they were smaller than their cat was) and it was a miracle for me how their owners recognize them. My children had a lot of fun playing with animals, so it was challenging for me to persuade them to go home. In fact, when I came to Calgary, I noticed that many people like dogs because dogs are everywhere – in the parks, streets, and playgrounds. Some families even prefer to have dogs instead of children. When I play with my children at the playground, I often meet a woman named Denine with her lively dog Sky. While my children enjoy playing with Sky, I practice with Denine my communications skills. Although she is about 35, she does not have children and says that her dog is her child and that it is enough for her. She buys a lot of toys for Sky and it plays with them jumping and running as a child, regardless of its age of 10. What I like in Canada is that there are not homeless animals at the streets. In our country there are a lot of them, and I always felt sorry about them.