Why Half a dog?

Half a dog?

Of course, you can’t have half a dog.

But two households could have half a dog each, as long as you’re willing to take it in turns. This is a little blog about why you might want to do that and how you might do it. It’s more than just “share a dog” as well as being a better name.

So this is a blog about owning half a dog, but it does only work if you have someone willing to own the other half!

How we got here

About seven years ago, I really wanted a dog. My wife was less convinced.

“What do we do when we go on holiday? What about when everyone’s just busy? The kids will love it sure, but they’ll get bored and forget to walk it. And if your health deteriorates it will just become a problem”

I have a medical condition (an incurable cancer) that could very easily “deteriorate”, and periodically does. And she’s right that would be a problem. She’s right about the rest too.

Meanwhile, 40 miles away live my sprightly septuagenerian parents. They’ve had previous dogs but they hadn’t replaced their last one. Their reasons were similar. They travel a lot (my sister, niece and nephew live in Latin America). They could envisage times when it would be a significant inconvenience. On occasions my health has created quite challenging short and medium term child care needs in our house, and my parents have been brilliant at dropping everything to come when we need them. And - though we never discussed this in overt terms - I’m sure they worried that a dog would outlast their ability to cope with it.

We all liked dogs. But none of us was going to get one.

I began to imagine a solution. None of us wanted a whole dog, but all of us could probably get a lot of benefit from half a dog. What if we shared a dog, that spent significant periods of time in each house, but that therefore also meant each house had half its time dog free? Would it work for us? Would it work for the dog?

Knowing there’s an online community for pretty much everything, I googled a bit. But while there’s plenty of “borrow my doggy” stuff, it’s much harder to find stuff about what I was thinking of.

This would not be a dog owned by one and lent to another. It would be a co-owned, entirely shared, dog. A condominium dog. We live nearly two hours drive apart (40 miles, two hours? London traffic!) so it would not be a dog that flitted back and forth informally or every few days. This dog would spend meaningful periods - months - in each home. We’d each be dog owners… but only half the time.

This way, we'd both have back up, overcoming all our obstacles to dog ownership. And we'd be able to give a dog - I reckoned - a life which is as enriching and secure as any.

So, that’s what we did. Our dog, now six years old, is settled and happy… with two lives, in two homes. This little blog tells how we did it. Maybe it will inspire you to do the same?