A Mom Says She Loves Her Dog but Started Resenting Him After Two Kids Arrived, and Their Daily Walks Became One More Thing She Could Barely Handle
A woman shared her story about getting a dog with her husband in 2023, during a period when they were waiting longer than expected to become parents. Her husband convinced her that bringing home a dog would be a good idea while they waited, and she eventually agreed. At the time, neither of them could have known how dramatically their daily routine would change just a couple of years later.
The dog became part of the family, and by all accounts, he was a sweet and affectionate animal. Everything seemed manageable while life was relatively simple, but that changed after the couple welcomed two children. With a 2-year-old and a 4-month-old at home, the woman began realizing that the dog required more time and energy than she could comfortably give.
Two Babies Changed Everything
The woman admitted that she felt ashamed to say she regretted getting the dog, especially because she did not actually dislike him. She described him as incredibly sweet and said he was very good with the children, rarely bothering them and tolerating their attempts to play with him. The problem was not his personality, but the amount of work attached to caring for him.
A family can look completely different once babies arrive, and this household was learning that lesson in real time. The woman was already struggling to keep up with two young children, yet there was still another living creature whose needs had to be handled every day. What once felt like a manageable responsibility had slowly started to feel like another item on an already impossible list.
The Mornings Had Become a Daily Race
One of the hardest parts of the routine was the morning walk. The family was already getting up around 6 a.m. to make sure everyone was ready and where they needed to be, but the dog still needed his morning outing before the day could properly begin. That meant the adults were trying to coordinate children, breakfast, clothes, schedules, and a dog who was waiting for his turn.
The woman said the mornings were stressful enough without adding another task to the mix. Even when her husband was not working, his time was divided between entertaining the children and taking care of the dog. Instead of the couple having extra time to divide household chores, much of that time disappeared into keeping everyone else moving.
Cleaning the House Became Another Battle
The woman also said she could barely find enough time to clean the house. Her husband was already stretched thin, which meant there was no simple solution where one person could just take over the chores while the other handled everything else. With children needing constant attention and the dog needing regular care, the household seemed to run on a never-ending rotation of responsibilities.
That was where the resentment began creeping in. The woman understood that the dog was not doing anything wrong, but she could feel herself becoming irritated whenever another responsibility landed on her already crowded schedule. She knew that the animal was simply being a dog, yet knowing that did not make the exhaustion disappear.
The Dog Was Not Actually Causing Trouble
There was an important detail behind the frustration that made the woman’s feelings even more complicated. The dog was not aggressive, destructive, or difficult with the children, and she said he was wonderful around them. He allowed them to touch him and play with him without making a fuss, while mostly keeping to himself.
In other words, this was not a story about a badly behaved pet turning family life upside down. The dog was doing exactly what he was supposed to do, and the family was taking proper care of him. That made the woman’s resentment harder for her to understand because there was no obvious villain in the situation.
Three Walks Were Still Three More Tasks
The family made sure the dog received three walks every day, with each walk lasting at least 30 minutes. The woman explained that the dog was a Labradoodle and, in her view, did not require much more exercise than that. Even with those needs being met, however, the schedule still felt relentless.
Every walk had to fit around naps, meals, childcare, work, and everything else happening inside the house. What might have looked like a simple half-hour outing on paper could become much more complicated when two small children were also involved. The woman was not saying the dog was neglected; she was saying that meeting his needs had become difficult during a stage of life when her own needs were often being pushed aside.
Family Trips Started Feeling Complicated
Another source of frustration was travel. The woman said having the dog made spontaneous day trips and holidays much harder because someone always had to make arrangements for him. Doggy daycare was not a realistic solution in their case because the dog apparently became miserable in that kind of environment.
That meant every trip required another layer of planning. The family could not simply decide to leave for the day without figuring out who would care for the dog and how the arrangement would work. Even ordinary outings began to feel like a logistical puzzle involving naps, walks, childcare, and pet care.
The Afternoon Walk Added Another Deadline
The dog also needed an afternoon walk, which meant the family’s schedule was never really free of his routine. The woman said they had to plan their days around both the children’s naps and the dog’s exercise needs. Those competing schedules made even basic family plans feel more restricted than she expected.
The difficulty was not necessarily the length of the walk itself. It was the fact that there was always another clock ticking somewhere in the background, and somebody had to keep track of it. For a parent already juggling two very young children, even one additional deadline could make an ordinary day feel surprisingly heavy.
She Started Feeling Like a Bad Person
The emotional part of the story seemed to trouble the woman even more than the practical problems. She worried that feeling frustrated with the dog made her a bad person because she had agreed to get him in the first place. She knew the dog had never asked to become part of a family whose circumstances would later change so dramatically.
She also understood that the clash was between the dog’s needs and the family’s current lifestyle, not between the dog and the people themselves. Yet guilt has a way of making ordinary frustration feel like a moral failure. Instead of simply thinking, “This is difficult,” she found herself wondering what kind of person could resent an animal that was perfectly sweet and loving.
She Was Not Planning to Rehome Him
The woman made it clear that rehoming was not on the table. Her husband loved the dog, and although she felt overwhelmed by the extra work, she cared about him too. Her frustration came from feeling trapped by the workload, not from wanting the dog gone.
That distinction was important because it changed the nature of the problem. The family was not searching for a way to get rid of their pet; they were trying to figure out how to make life work again. The woman was essentially asking how she could manage her own feelings while continuing to give the dog the care he needed.
A Simple Solution Might Take One Task Away
A response from a person suggested hiring a dog walker to take some of the pressure off the family. The woman immediately said she would look into it, although she explained that most dog walkers in her area handled several dogs together and her dog disliked being around other animals. She wondered whether she might be able to find someone who would take him for one-on-one walks instead.
That idea seemed to hit on the real issue. The family did not necessarily need a completely different dog or a completely different lifestyle; they might simply need one piece of the routine to stop landing on them every day. Taking one recurring responsibility off the family’s plate could potentially change how heavy the rest of the schedule felt.
A Local Teen Could Be the Unexpected Answer
Another response from a person suggested hiring a local teenager instead of looking for a professional dog walker. A teenager looking for some extra spending money might be happy to take the dog out after school, while the family would not have to coordinate with a full-time service. For a household struggling with the morning rush, another person even suggested looking for someone who could handle the walk before school.
The suggestion was surprisingly practical because it addressed the family’s biggest problem without requiring a major lifestyle change. The woman needed help with the dog, not necessarily another complicated service to manage. A familiar local person doing one-on-one walks could give the family more breathing room while keeping the dog’s routine intact.
Other Families Said They Understood the Feeling
A response from a person shared that having a dog before children and managing the same responsibility after having a baby could be an enormous adjustment. That person said hiring a dog walker several days a week had made a major difference while their own household was dealing with an infant and a dog. The extra help turned something that once felt overwhelming into a much more manageable part of the routine.
Another person described reaching a point where caring for their own animals felt exhausting, even though they still loved them deeply. Their solution was not to stop caring for the animals but to recognize that they had made a long-term commitment and wanted to see it through. The story offered the woman a different way to view her frustration: loving an animal and sometimes wishing you had fewer responsibilities can exist at the same time.
One Response Added a Bigger Twist
Then came a different perspective about the dog’s discomfort around other animals. A response from a person suggested that the dog might benefit from gradually becoming more comfortable around other dogs, which could eventually make boarding or daycare easier. That person explained that their own dog had once struggled around other animals but became much more relaxed with regular exposure.
The same person also mentioned services that can provide walks, drop-in visits, and temporary care during vacations. Suddenly, the travel problem that had seemed so permanent had another possible path forward. The family still had decisions to make, but the situation was not necessarily as locked in as it felt during those exhausting early months with two children.
Some Parents Said the Hardest Part May Simply Be This Stage
Several responses pointed toward the same underlying reality: life with very young children can make every additional responsibility feel enormous. One person suggested that the current period might simply be the most difficult stretch, especially if the family did not plan to have more children. As the children grow older, the adults may have more time and the children themselves may eventually become involved in caring for the dog.
That idea gave the situation a different kind of ending. The woman was not dealing with a permanent inability to handle the dog so much as a collision between his needs and an unusually demanding stage of family life. The dog who currently represented another task might one day become the pet her children remember growing up alongside.
The Dog May Eventually Become the Kids’ Favorite Part of the Story
A response from a person pointed out that many parents struggle with the shift from treating pets like their babies to suddenly having actual babies who consume most of their attention. The emotional adjustment can be surprisingly intense, especially when a pet still expects the same level of care as before. That person suggested that the woman was far from alone in having complicated feelings about the transition.
There was also a reminder of what the family could gain on the other side of this exhausting period. The children were already growing up with a gentle dog who tolerated their attention and shared their home, and their relationship would likely change as they got older. What currently felt like another obligation could eventually become one of those childhood memories that feels completely ordinary until years later, when everyone realizes how special it really was.
For Now, She Is Stuck Between Love and Exhaustion
The woman’s story ended without a dramatic decision because she was not looking for one. She still cared about the dog, her husband still loved him, and the family continued to meet his needs every day. What she wanted was permission to admit that she was exhausted without feeling guilty for it.
That may have been the twist hiding inside the entire story: the problem was never really that the woman stopped loving her dog. She was simply trying to fit one more set of needs into a household already bursting with diapers, naps, chores, work, and two tiny children. Sometimes the most frustrating part of family life is not choosing between love and responsibility, but realizing that you can have plenty of both and still desperately need someone to take one walk off your hands.
