Husband has been begging me to allow him to get a dog since before we were married. For the first couple years I used the money excuse - even he had to agree we just couldn't afford a dog. Next I said he couldn't possible care for a dog while he was in law school, again he simply couldn't refute this argument. The past couple years I said we didn't have the right kind of home for the type of dog he wanted since we lived in a little 3rd floor apartment.

About a month ago he started up big time. I tried all my usual tactics. I even admitted to him that I had fears I would never be okay with a dog in the house given their apparent desire to chew, drool or shed on everything. Then he found Peggy.

Peggy was a gorgeous, sweet tempered black lab at our local humane society. Her adoption fees were reasonable, she had all of her shots, she was young but old enough to be housebroken, she was untrained but responsive - in short she was the best I could hope for with a rescue dog. We asked all the right questions : Will she torment our cat?, Should we decide we aren't terrified of babies someday will she maul our would-be children?, etc. We made it clear we were extremely interested in adopting Peggy and the lovely lady at the Humane Society made it clear she was not at all interested in us, pointing out they were closing. In fact she was unwilling to listen to another word because they were closing, despite the fact that the helpful man (also employed by the Humane Society) had told us "Oh don't worry about it - stay as long as you like, we're happy to help you!" when we apologized for being there when they were about to close.

You see, we knew Peggy wasn't going to last long at the shelter. She was too perfect. So we got their hours and I hemmed and hawed. I spoke to extended family at our typical Sunday coffee gathering the next day and when I was still torn I called my friend Andrea who has a pug she adores. Hanging up with my friend I called my mom. We talked for a long time and basically it came down to the fact that Husband needed the companionship. He's been fighting some depression and the good it would do him to have a dog outweighed all my namby-pamby "'but she'll drool on my stuff!" arguments.

We rushed to the shelter where we were told Peggy had been adopted and left literally five minutes prior. When the worker saw our crushed faces, having heard we had been to see Peggy the day before she asked, "Did you put a reserve on her?"The answer was no, that option had not been presented as a possibility.

Well now Husband was so sad I had to do something. He sulked around the house with a barely noticeable moue and refused to admit he was upset. I started looking at rescue dogs on petfinder even if just to joke with him about them. Then one day we saw this littler of rescue pups being raised by a breeder about 2 hours from us. It just so happened we were headed to see Andrea that weekend and the breeder was only slightly out of the way along our drive.

So I went from no dog, to being okay with an adult dog to owning a puppy. He's a baby - only 9 weeks old and damn does he chew on everything. But he's adorable and Husband is happy. And I worked in my new word for the day into this post, so really everyone is happy.

Except the cat.