A friend just told me about a conversation she overheard – a pregnant woman was saying how she had to ‘get rid of her dog’ because they were having a baby. Unfortunately, this is a situation we’ve heard again and again. This is particularly sad, not only obviously for the dog, but for the baby as well, who is about to miss out big-time on benefits from having a pet around.
So in answer to this:
Firstly, dogs and other pets are not commodities, they should not be sold or traded when circumstances change.
Secondly, pets have enormous benefits on kids growing up. In fact, we were so blown away about the research we wrote an article about it, which you can read here.
This article also led to us devoting a book to the subject and then publishing the book, Moments of Connection, which is featured on this website.
So sad. Obviously some adjustments are required, but these are small compared with the benefits that pets bring.