Must Love Dogs

I attract dogs. I must walk around sending a message to the universe that I want to be surrounded by dogs, all the time, and lots of them. We always have somewhere between 1-5 dogs running around our house at one time.

Sometimes, they make me want to pull my hair out. Chuck, one of our current "live-ins," has many endearingly irritating qualities. One of his favorite pastimes is to walk out to the horse barn behind our house and munch on horse manure for a leisurely half hour. This is often followed by a return (on his own schedule, of course) to the house for some much-needed "face time" with his human housemates, where he puts both paws on your front and breathes heavily in your general direction.

Chuck is a Labradoodle, with lots of gray, unkempt curls and a huge block head. While our dog, Sadie (prissy as she is), generally avoids getting too dirty on walks, Chuck insists on trotting through as many patches of burdock as possible, claiming an innumerable amount for himself to take home and deposit all over the house. Not to mention his dedication to finding at least one swampy area during our daily jogs. Needless to say, he takes the longest to towel off once we return home.

But there is something about the sound of two dogs snoring at the foot of your bed that makes the burdock-covered carpets and horse manure breath all worth while - how they choose their place to rest for the night as close to you as possible. Something about the complete and utter trust that these creatures put in you that makes the human-canine bond so extraordinary.

And when morning comes and they eagerly await for you to fill their bowls with the thing in life they love the most (aside from us, of course), prancing about and huffing in gratitude, I know one thing is for sure. We need them as much as they need us.