“I never would have thought it necessary to establish criteria for boyfriends or husbands, especially one as seemingly unimportant as: Must love dogs. As in:
- You must be able to share your waking hours and living space and a good amount of your disposable income on a four-footed companion that is basically a child in fur for 12 to 15 years.
- You must plan every vacation around its needs.
- You will trip over toys and pigs’ ears and chew hooves splayed across your best Persian carpet.
- You will be forced to walk it every day, rain or shine, or risk having your favorite shoes sacrificed to the god of canine frustration.
- If everything goes well and it lives to a ripe old age, you may have to decide to end its suffering, and you will have to be strong enough to stay with it those last moments, stroking its silky ears.
In my life, dogs have always been a part of that equation, a way to find the small, grounding moments in life — the grass, sunlight and sweet bite of plums — that we commonly call happiness. After 20 years of marriage, on our fourth dog, my husband and I are best friends, which must be at least as rare as soul mates.”
Read the rest of this article by Tatjana Soli @ Picking Up The Scent On The Road to Bliss
Related Post: Guess who graduated? With a fancy badge and diploma too…
Credits:
- Photograph: Pink Blue & You – the winner of the Cute Close-ups Competition was Gemma Buttery’s dog Neo
- Thank you Susan for sharing the article.
Live & Learn 
No truer words have ever been written… 🙂
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Not just dogs, anything or anybody that comes along with the person. children, cats, fishes, plants, mess, blah, blah, blah. I love the story behind this.
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🙂 Funny. So true, including mess.
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Completely agree.
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🙂
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It’s been said that if young children and dogs like a man, he’s probably a pretty good guy. True for women too, I’m thinking.
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I’m thinking you are right Darlene.
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It’s a must. And one more rule – if you find a husband like this, don’t even think of standing in the way of his bonding with a new puppy (Andy and Bogey are upstairs watching golf – well, one is sleeping the other is watching – while lying on the floor next to his new pal).
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Awwwwww, so cute.
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Spot on! Our puppy has been allowed to walk off the lead in the woods for the first time today, the equivalent I guess of saying to your teenage son “Here’s some money for the cab, and try not to disgrace yourself too much.”
When we invite them into our family we know we are setting ourselves up for heartbreak. And yet we know it’s worth it.
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Laughing. I forgot that you are the proud owners of a new pup. It must have been fun to watch him run in the woods. Nothing like freedom for a young puppy to explore.
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As you know, we just lost our furry boy about 3 1/2 weeks ago. Hubbs looked at me recently, with tears clouding his deep brown eyes, and said, “I cannot do that again. It just hurts … too much.”
I acknowledged him but spoke my truth and said, “Not now, but I cannot NOT have a dog again.”
The thing is, we invite them in, they steal our hearts and our checkbooks, and life is never the same.
And that’s the point.
Grand-daughter MJ said it best, with a sigh as heavy as a 4 year old could muster, “Nana, I just miss my Frankie-bear.” As do we all.
Wonderful post
MJ
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Awww, thanks for sharing MJ. I can understand and imagine how you and your family feel today.
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The house is empty without pets, so we can’t be without them.
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It certainly is empty. And without kids and dogs, it echos!
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maybe better is “dogs like him”
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Great point Bill!
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Aww.. This is so Cute & Loving. I am laughing at the title though.
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Laughing. THAT wasn’t intentional. I’m just seeing now what you are reading. 🙂
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Laughing again.
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As an avowed dog lover and mother of two fur kids, this resonated deeply with me. They really DO have a way of making one “stop and smell the flowers,” and I’ve found them to be great judges of character. Wonderful piece, David….
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Lori, I wasn’t a buyer (largely ignorant and uninformed) prior to conceding to getting Zeke. I’m all in today. Have a great week.
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I’ve read somewhere that for woman living with a big and angry dog almost leaves no chance to find a life partner or spouse, as this dog replaces attitudes with a man and a new man reads this like a hidden message “I already have a partner, that protects me and don’t like strangers in my life, so, go away.” No, may be a concept itself, that the guy should love the dogs or other God creatures is right and shows his humanistic approach, but if they guy is being frightened from his childhood by a big scary dog, so what? I think that this criteria is too general.
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I cannot disagree with that scenario and conclusion Margarita.
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