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If we treated animals as if they were babies, we would also guide them onto the pathways of becoming adults. Animals treated like babies are forever treated like babies, which isn't fair to them.

This doesn't mean we can't love newborn or very young animals like we love babies, pampering them and making sure they have love, food and caring attention. But when they become "children" age levels, animals deserve to be guided, gently disciplined and definitely trained. Do remember that the pet-type animals age much more rapidly than humans. My eight-month-old cat actually went into heat a few days before she was six-months old. (Two days before I had her scheduled for neutering, of course!)

Now, animals reproduce early so that doesn't mean she was 12-15 which is when most human females become reproductive, but she will definitely age 7 or more years in her first year. Cats and dogs age differently according to breed, too, but the seven years for a pet per one year for a human is not a bad base to work from on dogs and cats, at least. I'm simply not familiar enough with other animals to guess, but I would guess that they also age differently from humans.

Find out, at least in averages, how your pet ages versus human terms. Train it as you would train a child as it reaches those age levels. Of course, be fair to the pet. You can't expect a four-month old puppy to perfectly obey every sit, stay, heel command you issue anymore than you would you could expect a child in the early grade levels to win a spelling bee or do long division. Just encourage it to grow in discipline just like you do a child a little at a time.

As pets grow, friendship and love continue, but animals should be treated with respect, not as infants all of their lives. I still miss the very adult lab my late-husband and I had. She cared about us as much as we cared about her, and she was proud of the trust and independence we could grant her because she had grown up to deserve it. Yes, we had to continue to feed, water her and take her to the vet; she couldn't do those things for herself. But she was a self-sustaining member of our family in so many ways. But she was a happy and loving dog at an adult, not infant, basis.

Perhaps we should remember that "babies" of any species only need our care. They learn to love us when they are allowed to grow and understand that loving is a two-way street with responsibilities on both sides.

Learn more about this author, Margaret Shauers.
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