BARKING MAD!

At last I'm suffering from empty nest syndrome :-)! After more than 20 years of picking up clothes, towels, emptying rotten goodness knows what from smelly gym bags, nagging, begging, chauffering, paying out, feeding and forever fretting...the house is child free...We can watch something other than Friends, the computer is ours to hog, the biscuits are ours to nibble and the fridge generally has in it what we placed there a few hours earlier. There is time to read, paint, strum or browse and meals can be whisked up in minutes given that we're hungry! We can go out, come back and hide for hours without babysitters or checking in with our offspring, so why, oh why would we even consider the possibility of taking in a pooch..Indeed it is a question that requires a level of thought that only a physcologist may unravel. Having never housed a four legged friend (unless Monty the guinea pig is to be counted...) and the gerbils who never really made an emotional impact upon any of us (kids included) we find ourselves thinking that there is sometimes a void...sometimes! We need to get out to walk and yet despite our best intentions, the excuses of why we don't have time or the inclination give us reasons not to bother. We have watched our neighbours nurture and love their labrador from puppy to his autumn years where he now walks with the pain and speed that his arthritis will allow but between the years from pup to papa he has been a wonderfully rewarding and affectionate companion. So maybe we are thinking that a companion would be fun and rewarding. So we've begun doing a little research and rapidly realise that theres so much more to this selection process than we might have imagined even if we rule out the cost involved. My wish list would have to include...a dog who...didn't molt, bite, yap, growl, have bad breath, fussy eater, could cope without company for a couple of hours at a time and wouldn't yank my arms out when taking it for a walk. I'd prefer one who looked appealing, not too small but then again not too large, who didn't have a history of schizo behaviour, liked children and animals and was obedient. Preferably he should have a clean bill of health, come from a good gene pool, not whimper or have travel sickness, understands me and doesn't mind sleeping alone in his own basket. I've yet to look into the costs of weekly food, insurance and kennels should we want to go away and am barely able to imagine to distress if we lose him (not because we're careless but because of a health problem..- i haven't got one yet (a dog I mean) and I'm almost in tears imagining this scenario!)... We gave Monty the Guinea pig a home for less than two years...He was an overweight and not terribly friendly G.p yet its probably 8 years since he passed away and we still miss him dearly.
A dog? can we really be thinking about this now? Are we crazy? ...watch this space........