Will getting a gorgeous puppy chew up our family life?

When my kids were desperate for a dog in their younger years I fobbed them off with Rolex, who we found on dog-sitting platform Borrow my Doggy, which is Tinder for desperately seeking dog-sitters. You swipe through pictures of potential pooches on an app until you find your perfect match and then message the owners to arrange a date. Obviously, Rolex was a poor consolation prize for getting our own dog, but he was still a pretty good play date. In a very Jewish turn of events, the stranger we’d met on doggie Tinder (sounds a little sordid, but is perfectly innocent) grew up around the corner from my husband in Whitefield, Manchester. The clue was probably in the name (of the dog). What’s more, he was the son of my husband’s bar mitzvah teacher – the perfect shidduch.

But when our three little chickens came along, it became tricky to have dog visits any longer. Four-legged guests usually sniff out the chicken coop and run around it in delusional excitement, giving poor Kim, Khloé and Kourtney Karchikian a heart attack, which sends us running after the dog, and before long a full-on farce is being performed for all our neighbours. Our experience is therefore fairly limited, so the dog-owner schmooze has given me vital insight into what lies ahead.

What I have genuinely found amazing is the time and attention dog owners give their pets. At this point I can’t imagine how I’m going to find time to walk a dog every day given that it takes me six months to get through a new Netflix series. But between the five of us we’re going to take a day of the week each. (Yes, I realise that leaves two spare days.)

The other nugget I’ve picked up from my chats is that, unless you want to attract utter disdain, never ask whether you have to walk a dog every day or admit (totally hypothetically) that there may be two days unaccounted for in your dog-walking weekly calendar. I have made the mistake of asking such a question to a group of dog owners and anyone would think I’d inquired whether I could put my dog-to-be in the toaster. But just to reassure any dog owners who have a little guilty look on their face right now, you don’t all walk your dogs every day. One-on-one there have been a few guilty admissions about dogs who may not be getting walkies as often as is optimal, confessions I will, of course, take with me to the grave.

But it is striking how much more committed dog owners are – or at least appear to be – to their dogs’ exercise than parents seem to be to their children’s. All mums know it’s good to take their kids to the playground, but you wouldn’t be cold-shouldered at nursery pick-up if you admitted you don’t take your kid to the park every day. No one would suggest that perhaps you shouldn’t be a parent at all if you can’t even commit to walking around Golders Hill Park every single day for the next decade.

The other salient point I have now picked up from my extensive canine research is that my kids may not end up being as helpful as I think they might, or they think they might be. Which is why I’m currently devising an incentive scheme. Surely the fact that dogs create stink bombs, which you then parcel up, could be a potential handy punishment for those who bunk dog walking duties. I haven’t quite smoothed out the details but I feel the framework is there.

The resounding lesson from all of this is that dogs are a huge commitment. I am excited to have a sweet little furry friend but I am also nervous about upsetting our life balance, which right now is fairly optimal. In the last week alone, I know one dog-owner friend who has driven half way across the country to get her pet the treatment she needs and another who has been pacing the streets at 3am to deal with constipation (her dog’s, not her own).

But I guess these are acts of love and anything that brings more love into your life, even if it can be a total pain at times, is a blessing. I’m just hoping my blessing lets me sleep, doesn’t steal the chicken straight off the Friday night table – and doesn’t suffer from constipation.

Naomi Greenaway is Deputy Editor of the Telegraph Magazine and Long Reads