Rachel Dugan: Notebook
Gone to the dogs: are we really barking mad to be asking our bosses for paw-ternity leave?
OUR current family unit comprises just myself and my husband, but from this weekend it will increase to three as we prepare to welcome the patter of tiny feet. Well, tiny paws to be precise.
After 10 years of longing for one of our own, of jumping at the chance to dog-sit for, well, pretty much anyone, and cooing over random strangers’ pooches, we are finally getting a dog. So deeply ingrained is our canophilia that we once went, pet-free, to a doggy festival in deepest, darkest hipster Dublin. There were lots of pouty French bulldogs and cute dachshunds, but we left feeling slightly grubby, like a couple desperate for children who had spent the afternoon hanging out at a playground.
But from Saturday, our twosome will be a threesome and our lives will never quite be the same – and neither will our house. There’ll be the inevitable puddles of puppy pee and piles of puppy poop, the night-time crying and daytime chewing. And despite hoping against hope, I know there will be lots of dog hair and it will infiltrate every crevasse of our existence.
As the first few days will be key when it comes to training and settling in, we’re currently discussing which one of us will take some time off when the dog arrives.
Funnily enough, puppy leave is not something our employers are all that interested in. But bringing a dog into your life is a massive commitment, perhaps not on a par with welcoming a new baby but still a life-changing event. Is paw-ternity leave such a crazy idea?
Some employers think not. Scottish craft-beer firm Brewdog this year introduced a Puppy Parental Leave programme, offering staff a week of paid leave when they welcome a new dog. Somewhat more predictably, the Belgian company behind Pedigree Chum and Winalot runs a similar scheme.
For now, though, paw-ternity leave remains a perk too far for most Irish employers and dog-owners have to dip into their annual leave in order to carve out some quality time with their new arrival. Talk about paw-sitive discrimination.
Worst. New. Year’s. Eve. Ever.
SPENDING New Year’s Eve in the company of family or friends – whether it be in a heaving bar, quiet restaurant, or slumped in front of the TV polishing off the last of the Quality Streets – is something I’ve always taken for granted. Until last week, all 37 New Year’s Eves I’d spent on this earth had been in the company of others. But this year, laid low by a bout of the flu, I couldn’t bring myself to go to the dinner party we’d planned with friends.
It had the makings of a truly epic night – party food, dinner, lashings of prosecco and the promise of a Trivial Pursuit marathon late into the night – but no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t peel myself off the couch so my other-half decided to go alone (I don’t harbour any ill-will, honestly, but if you feel the need to judge, I won’t stop you).
After a few hours trying unsuccessfully to pretend this was just a normal night in, I went to bed. As the clock struck midnight, I lay there listening to the crack of distant fireworks. Then the texts from pals arrived, along with the pictures of them toasting the New Year with their nearest and dearest.
I felt terrible but also grateful that this was an unpleasant situation to be endured for a few hours, not a permanent state of affairs. And anyway, if Aussie Flu boomerangs back my way next year, I’ll have a four-legged friend to see the New Year in with.
Fight was not for Big Brother vote
NOW it’s 2018, it’s time to celebrate 100 years since women got the vote (yay!). Unfortunately, celebrations kicked off on Tuesday in the UK with a new series of the televisual cesspit that is ‘Celebrity Big Brother’.
The cynical programme-makers decided to mark the milestone by making this an all-female series. Personally, I fail to see what locking up a group of z-list female celebrities and public figures in a house with nothing but a Jacuzzi and a network of CCTV cameras for company has to do with suffrage. And I won’t be tuning in to find out.