The Short Story

Pregnant Women with Dogs Walk More

Pregnant women with dogs walk more. I don’t know whether you knew that or not. I know because my laptop has been telling me so for years. It flashes up this message several times a day in a banner across the top of the screen. It does tell me other things, but none so frequently as this. It appears that this is the one that it really needed to get across to me.

So when my doctor told me I needed to do more exercise, naturally I thought it would be a good idea to get a dog and get pregnant so that I would walk more. The dog was easy. I stopped in the pet shop on the way home from the surgery and got myself the one and only puppy they had in there. He was looking folorn in a cage, poor thing. He’s a collie and I've called him Colin. He has a black face with one white patch on his right eye. Other people would probably have called him Patch, but not me.

The getting pregnant bit was harder. I've never had much success in relationships. In fact, I've never really had one. I don’t think you can count one night stands; and I've only ever had one of them anyway. It’s not that I'm ugly or anything but I can be a bit intense, impulsive. Weird, apparently. It puts people off.

But doctor’s orders were not to be ignored. So I joined an online dating service and practiced being more normal – a bit more lighthearted, frivolous, fun and girly. It worked as well and I went out on dates with four men a couple of weeks after joining who all wanted to meet me again. So I tracked my ovulation and arranged to see them when I was at my most fertile. It was hard work at first, keeping up this new persona, as despite the fact I slept with them all in the same week I didn’t get pregnant the first time.

So I had to keep on seeing them. I went on regular dates with them all, chatted on the phone with them all, slept them with them all again and again; and in the process I seem to have turned into a new person. One who laughs a lot more, who goes out and about and has four men who want to be with her. Now that I'm pregnant I do know I’ll have to pick just one of them to be with.

But do you know what the funniest thing is? After I’d done the test and finally went on my walk with Colin in the park down the road there were loads of people walking around there without dogs who weren’t pregnant. So I could have just gone for a walk on my own. But instead I have a cute puppy, I'm going to be a mother and I have several lovers. I wonder now what that message on my laptop was really trying to tell me.