Why big pets are great for small kids

Skip the goldfish. Forget the gerbil. Go big or go home.

Big dogs are the best.
(Image credit: stasia04 / Alamy Stock Photo)

My husband and I don't have children, but our friends increasingly do, and sometimes, they bring their kids to our house. This is how we learned our dog, Abby, loves babies. She is fascinated by them. When a baby carrier appears in our living room, Abby is inexorably drawn to it. She stares at the baby's face, gently sniffing and happily submitting to ear tugs and nose boops and whatever else tiny, curious fingers can mete upon her eminently grabbable fur.

Discovering this new side of Abby got me thinking about pets and kids and what kind of pets we think are good for kids. I also have two guinea pigs, and when I mention them to people for the first time, I almost always get the same reaction: "Oh, I/my cousin/my friend from across the street had guinea pigs/hamsters/rabbits when we were kids."

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.