Woman 'Wasn't Ready' for a Baby So Gets a Dog—It Ends As Expected

A woman from San Diego, California, got herself a dog because she wasn't ready to care for a crying baby. However, her choice hilariously backfired.

In a video shared on TikTok on Sunday under the username @sammielolo3, the dog, a senior Chihuahua named Button, can be seen crying and scratching the poster's furniture, doing all the things she was trying to avoid when she got her.

"Got a dog in my 20s [because] I wasn't ready for a crying and demanding kid. 15 years later … The dog I ended up with," reads layover text in the clip. A caption says: "One thing about Button, she is going to speak up when she wants something."

For a multitude of reasons, including financial uncertainty and climate-change concerns among others, young Americans are increasingly deciding against having children and going for pets instead.

A survey quoted by the American Association of Psychologists found that, in 2024, about 30 percent of young adults aged 18 to 34 without kids weren't sure if they wanted to have any children, and as many as 18 percent were sure that they didn't want any.

At the same time, according to Forbes, pet ownership rates in the country have jumped significantly over the past few decades. In fact, as of 2024, around 66 percent of American households, roughly 86.9 million homes, owned a pet. This was a 10 percent jump from 56 percent in 1988.

An increasing amount of pet owners now consider their pets as part of their family. A 2023 YouGov survey of 2,000 U.S. citizens found out that over 9 in 10 American pet owners consider the animal they are most closely attached to as part of their family.

Just under 4 in 10 of owners think of themselves as the parent of the pet they are most closely attached to, and around 3 in 10 in Americans even buy their animals their own gifts during the holidays.

The video quickly went viral on social media and has so far received over 802,000 views and more than 154,000 likes on the platform.

Newsweek reached out to @sammielolo3 for comment via TikTok comments. We could not verify the details of the case.

One user, MADISON AMARA, commented: "One thing a small dog is going to do is advocate for itself."

Ghazaleehhh posted: "My dog would bark at me to pick him up and put him on the bed (he had stairs) then would jump back down and leave the room. Then he'd do it again at least 5 more times every night before bed."

Jac added: "I didn't want screaming children so now I have two toy breed dogs that scream when they hear the wind."

Do you have funny and adorable videos or pictures of your pet you want to share? Send them to life@newsweek.com with some details about your best friend, and they could appear in our Pet of the Week lineup.