“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.