Thanks so much for stopping by & taking the time to post a comment.

So you’re working out of Brockport now! From the East side to the West :-)

My new pup is wonderful and easy as well–I can’t imagine life without her :-)

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for the feedback. My blog style went to pieces when I upgraded wordpress a few months back and although I’ve tried tinkering with it I can’t figure out how to fix it :-(

With Firefox my header image won’t display and the only code I can find that increases the size of the body text increases the size of all the fonts on the page . . .

Anyway — I certainly don’t mean to discourage anyone from getting a dog, so I sincerely hope I didn’t do that.

The real key is to find the right people — people who can help you during the adoption process, who understand that not every dog is going to be the right fit, and have a vested interest in taking dogs back if they aren’t. The rescue organization I’m working with now will let me bring a dog into my home on a trial basis so I can really get to know the dog before I make a commitment. Plus they have their dogs in one of their homes prior to the adoptions, so they have first hand knowledge of the dogs’ temperament.

Compare that to a shelter situation where a dog might act more subdued — or more excitable — then he otherwise would, just because it’s such a strange place.

Not that you can’t find amazing dogs in shelters, of course you can — but for those of us who want that extra layer of guidance, rescues might be a suitable choice.

Also, small criticism — I find the font on your blog amazingly small and difficult to read.

Yeah, people and dogs . . . there are layers here having to do with quitting relationships as a parallel to giving up on difficult dogs, but best leave that to another post.

I’m going to phone you soon btw!

A couple I know just adopted a baby from Kazakstan, and the process was that they were required to go there and spend a month visiting the orphanage before they could adopt a baby. I wonder if they thought about the babies’ temperaments while they chose, or if it was purely an emotional bonding. I do know that they did bond with a little 7-month-old boy and brought him home a few days ago. Temperament is an interesting thing, in people and in dogs.

Sorry again about Laykey.

My boyfriend also resolved never to get another dog, after losing one he’d had for 14 years. My problem is that I can’t imagine living without one.

Tippy sounds fantastic.

You had bulldogs at one point too, didn’t you?

Was Tippy a bulldog?

Wow, blast from the past!!!

I don’t know as I’d call the site fantastic though! It didn’t come through my last WordPress upgrade intact, sadly. I spent hours coming the code trying to figure out what I need to tweak to restore it but no luck . . .

So what are you up to these days?

You also reminded me of the reason I will not likely have another dog in this life — I ache so bad when they die.

As a pre-teen and early teenager, I had a dog named Tippy. Part collie, part lots of other things, Tippy was the perfect boy’s companion if the boy lived in the country as I did. When he’d see me carrying a fishing pole he’d go nuts, leaping and cavorting all around me urging me to hurry down the hill to the nearby lake so he could splash and swim and scare away any fish within two miles of us.

He hated ticks; and we had lots of them. I had to search him for them and pull out those I found. He put up with that ONLY if every time I pulled one I’d allow him to see it, smell it, and (often) eat it. Sometimes I’d wear light colored tan pants on those jaunts through the weeds, and Tippy would see ticks crawling up the outside of them and gently pick them off of me and eat them.

One day I’ll never forget I had a piece of rope, and Tippy and I were playing tug-o-war. He’d growl and shake the rope and wait for me to pull it. When I did, he’d jerk it back and try to get it away from me. I thought I’d outsmart him so I looked away as if paying no attention. When he dropped the rope I yanked it HARD to gain sole possession. But in a flash he snagged the end just as I was trying to whip it away from him. It came out of his mouth, but embedded in the rope was one of his teeth with a little blood on it.

I felt SO rotten and bad! I hugged that dog and made over him and told him how sorry I was. He just wagged and licked and acted like it was no big deal.

I’ll never forget how horrible I felt for causing pain to my best friend.

Maybe that’s why I got so choked up at your goodbye.