dogs

so i used to have a dog... i've had a couple of them acutally... by 'having a dog' i mean that my parents had dogs and i played with them and picked up dog poop in the backyard... when i was older i even fed them... but the primary dog-rearing was done by the primary child-rearers... the dogs themselves put up with me more than anything else.

now that i'm almost a grown up myself, it is almost second nature to want to bring a little four legged buddy back into my life.

right now is not the time for this to happen. however, that is not to say that i can't prepare for the eventuality when this does happen.

so i bought a dog book... how to understand dogs and that kind of stuff. it was highly instructive, and very interesting. if anything, it reinforced the fact that right now is MOST DEFINITELY NOT the time to bring a dog into my life, but i think it has also brought me a few more steps towards dog-preparation.

one of the things that it has made me reconsider is what kind of dog to get. it is easy to pick out a breed based on what it looks like or what the breed is known for... i think a lot of people pick out dogs that reflect who they think they are.

the problem is that the dogs will probably reflect those attributes... but that might not be who that person is.

i'm all about optimism and projection, but there is most definitely a gap between the world where people think they live and the actual world they live in... myself included.

so who am it? what kind of dog would i best belong to?

i don't know. while driving down the road to the beach with a beautiful rhodesian ridgeback sticking his head out of the window of a vintage bio-diesel converted land cruiser may sound romantic, do i have the personality or lifestyle to adequately meet that animal's needs? (exercise, social time, regular schedule?)

i don't know.

then i ask myself... am i a purebred kind of guy? or a mutt kind of guy? am i a big dog guy? or medium or small? do i spend hours training my dog to do cool stuff like find the remote control? is it an outside or inside dog? am i the kind of guy who gets a puppy and raises it from scratch? or would i adopt an 8 year old dog from a shelter?

so many questions.

good thing it will be a long while before that day comes.

it's kind of like the equivalent of studying for the SAT when i'm in third grade.

i'm kind of fiending for a milkbone.