Saturday, August 14, 2010

Dog: Man's best friend or Worst enemy

People always say that dogs are man's best friend, but is that really true?  Dogs are cuddly, cute animals that everyone likes to play with, and they save some lives, but are they really worth taking care of?

First of all, they excrete everywhere.  You first have to train them to go outside to do their business, which takes a LOT of work over an extensive amount of time.  Even after you get them to go outside to go,  you still have to pick up their excrements.  When you pick up the feces, you feel the soft, squishy warmness under your fingers, which doesn't feel good at all.

Another reason that dogs aren't man's best friend is because they always want to play.  This may seem like a good thing at first.  After a while though, you realize that it is very annoying.  Every time you come home from an agonizing day at work, your dog encircles or jumps onto you and forces you to play either though you only want to lay down and go to sleep.  And you still have to clean up after your dog.

A smaller, but still annoying reason is that dogs shed everywhere.  You have to use a lint roller or a vacuum and clean the house at least every week.  Even after a hard day at work.

Once in a while, you have to pay lots of money for the dog going to the vet when it is sick.  You also always have to pay for its food, toys and other daily equipment.  All that stuff to pay for is almost as expensive as taking care of a child.

One think people often overlook when adopting a dog, or any pet, is their capability to break valuable belongings.  They can knock over vases and lamps, they can drool all over your computer with the family photos, they can eat your beloved iPod.  They can even tear out pages from your library books or use your money as a bedspread.

Taking care of a dog is as annoying, or even more annoying, than taking care of a child.  So next time you want to adopt that cute little animal sitting in a glass cage at the mall, think about it some more.  Are dogs man's best friend or worst enemy?

2 comments:

  1. I'll get back to you on this latest post later today, but for today's post:

    Write a story/memory about Sarah, 350+ words. The reader should be able to know what type of person she is by the end of it.

    By the way, look at the comment I gave you below the cheese article.

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  2. "People always say that dogs are man's best friend, but is that really true?" <---This language is a little loose and too informal. Maybe, "The common saying goes that "dogs are man's best friends, but is that really true?"

    "Another reason that dogs aren't man's best friend" <--- You use the phrase "dogs aren't man's best friend" just a tad too much. Try replacing it with "Dogs are more trouble than they're worth because...." or some variation thereof. Try changing up your sentence phrases a little, you know?

    "Every time you come home from an agonizing day at work," <----Your use of second-person in this post is fine, but you should still beware of how you handle sentence structure. This sentence is too restricting; the purpose of it is to set up a hypothetical scenario in which the reader can imagine himself coming home from work and having to deal with a messy dog. However, the way you set it up right now presupposes that the reader is someone who comes home from work, when in fact that's not the case for many people. A better setup would be: "Let's say that you've just had an agonizingly long day at work. You come home, hoping to hit the bed and get some rest, but then find that your dog has just trashed your home. Do you really want to come home to a dump, and spend half and hour on your hands and knees cleaning up fur and pee?"

    The trick here is to consciously realize that you're setting up hypothetical situations here, and execute them well.

    "Once in a while, you have to pay lots of money for the dog going to the vet when it is sick. You also always have to pay for its food, toys and other daily equipment. All that stuff to pay for is almost as expensive as taking care of a child." <---- Here you set up another hypothetical situation, telling the reader what will happen to them. But you don't want your entire essay to consist of those - you want to change things up a bit. So maybe you should just state, "Veterinary bills are also exorbitant, and operations on pets can run in the tens of thousands of dollars. It's like you have to take care of a child, paying for its food, toys, and medical bills."

    The statement you're really trying to make is that the emotional benefits of a dog are outweighed by the financial and practical costs. Maybe you should state it more explicitly? "Sure, dogs may be cute and furry, but is it really worth all that time and money?"

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