How we accidentally turned our dog into our fourth kid

We may not have realized until now, but during our single, temporary year of being “empty nesters,” wife Lindy and I turned our dog, Finch, into our fourth child.

Last year, Emma — our 16-year-old daughter, our youngest of three children, our only kid still at home —

spent her junior year of high school in Belgium

as part of the Rotary Youth Exchange.

To fill that space, we focused on our dog.

We enrolled Finch in school, paid for school pictures, signed her up for a sports team.

We took an active interest in her friends, encouraged more physical activity, forced her to wear special outfits for holidays.

Finch is our 13-pound chihuahua/poodle/pit bull/Doberman mix who we adopted four years ago, during COVID quarantine. She is the small dog I swore we would never get.

Finch had been abandoned on Marion Road, went unclaimed at the city impound, moved to Paws and Claws.

When daughter Emma, then 13, saw Finch on the web page, she begged us to go see her. Our entire family drove to Paws and Claws.

Finch was the weirdest-acting dog we’d ever seen. We knew she was meant to be ours.

It was not unusual, just a few weeks after Emma had left for Belgium, for Lindy to walk into the living room and hear me saying things to Finch in a voice like a grandmother talking to her first grandchild.

Finch loves to have her belly rubbed. For whatever reason, I have taken to calling this process “Finchie getting her bel bel rub nubs.”

For whatever reason, when Finch stretches, I have taken to calling her “Gretchen,” and yelling “Look! It’s ‘Stretchin’ Gretchen!’”

This all started off as a joke. Now I honestly don’t know if I can stop. I’ve caught myself saying these things — and talking in that voice — when we have company over.

I’m sure friends have commented to one another other about it.

It’s not just me.

Lindy signed Finch up for dog agility class, in which the two of them — well, Finch mostly — spend an hour on Wednesdays running through tunnels and jumping over hurdles.

Every Wednesday night, when Lindy meets our team for trivia at Little Thistle, she breathlessly explains how Finch was one of the night’s top performers. There are only three other dogs in the class.

We signed Finch up for a weekly Doggie Day Training at Courteous K9. Lindy intentionally times these sign-ups so they coincide with the holiday photos that Courteous K9 offers — dogs posed in front of a Christmas tree, next to the Easter Bunny, in front of a fireworks backdrop.

We pay extra for these portraits. We now have nearly as many professional portraits of this dog as we do of our three children combined.

Oh, Finch is by no means perfect.

The neighbors who live behind us, and next to us on both sides, and anyone who walks past our back fence — if they happen to somehow see this — are going to be sarcastically reading this aloud to each other at the dinner table.

Finch can be a barker.

“Finch is the perfect dog,” Lindy always tells people. “She just hates people.”

People, at least, she doesn’t yet trust.

When we first got Finch, it took three months — of being home alone with her every day — before she let me pet her.

Lindy and her friend Claudia walk with Finch every week. It took Finch maybe a year of this before she let Claudia pet her. Now she won’t let her stop.

Also, the following exchange literally just happened. Is happening right now, in fact.

Lindy and I are sitting in the living room as I’m writing this column. I ask Lindy about “Doggie Day Training,” above. Just to verify what it’s called.

“Oh! I completely forgot to tell you!” Lindy says. “Finch just got her own little treat bag that they gave her for agility class. It’s even got her name — Finch Lange — on it!”

This interaction suddenly feels very much like I’m in the middle of one of those “turning into your parents” commercials from Progressive.

“Here are some more things you should put in the column,” Lindy is saying. “Lucy, Molly, and Freyja are Finch’s friends in the dog agility class with us. And Finch is fast. Very fast. She’s what’s called a ‘tunnel suck’, which means she loves to run through the tunnels.”

Our actual child, Emma, who has been back from Belgium for six months now, can hear us talking from her bedroom. She doesn’t say a word.

“Also, we can sign Finch up to be a ‘household helper’ at Courteous K9! That means she would get to help around the facility when she’s there! Oh, and remind me to buy her report cards for her last few visits! …”

Steve Lange is the editor of Rochester Magazine. His column appears every Tuesday.

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