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No puppy for me.
Jul. 28th, 2009 06:09 pmI was offered a Newfie puppy today. I turned it down. I love dogs, especially REALLY BIG dogs, and if all goes well I will soon have a fully fenced in back yard where I could have a really big dog. However:
1) I really, really, really, loathe cleaning up dog poo. This means I either need a child of my own, which in turn means waiting at least seven years until the child is of an age to grasp that the sole purpose for it being born was at least 10 years of slave labour, or I need to rent someone else's child. That gets expensive. It also requires subjecting myself to Other People's Children and I tend to do that as infrequently as possible.
2) I have chickens. I have chickens because I enjoy having chickens. They are small, cute, funny, useful, produce edible byproduct, and have beautiful plumage. I prefer that plumage in its natural state - ON THE CHICKEN. Chickens + dogs = bad news.
3) I want bees. I will have a yard big enough for bees, and I want bees for much the same reason I wanted chickens - they're small, cute, useful, fun to watch, and produce edible byproduct. Short of adhering the hive to the ground with concrete, I can find no way to prevent having a 200lb honey-coated dog, a broken hive, and several thousand really pissed off bees.
4) Newfies are a drool breed, and while I find the ability to fling long streamers of viscous slobber 20' or more impressive, it's not something I want happening in my livingroom unless I'm throwing a really good party.
5) Newfies are water dogs. They produce an oil that keeps their several coats of fur waterproof. Even after swimming in the sea for hours, a Newfie will be dry at the skin level. Know what that means? Means everything the dog touches will smell like a dog. Forever. Because it's an oil and won't easily wash off.
6) They have a 10 year life expectancy. I tend to have One True Pet of each breed, the one that's so perfect and wonderful and special snowflake that when it dies, I can't bear to buy another of that breed because there's just no way to even try to recapture the perfection of the original pet. If I have a Newfie now, and it's the One True Newfie, my future children would be at most 9 years old when it died. So right when they're getting to the age where I'd have a home-grown poo cleanup crew, I'd have no reason for it because I'd be unable to have dogs again. At that age, children are tough and stringy so it's almost impossible to get your investment back out of them even if you can find a gypsy to sell them to.
I kind of hope whichever gods are listening are taking note of all this maturity and virtue lately. I'd hate to think it's being wasted.
1) I really, really, really, loathe cleaning up dog poo. This means I either need a child of my own, which in turn means waiting at least seven years until the child is of an age to grasp that the sole purpose for it being born was at least 10 years of slave labour, or I need to rent someone else's child. That gets expensive. It also requires subjecting myself to Other People's Children and I tend to do that as infrequently as possible.
2) I have chickens. I have chickens because I enjoy having chickens. They are small, cute, funny, useful, produce edible byproduct, and have beautiful plumage. I prefer that plumage in its natural state - ON THE CHICKEN. Chickens + dogs = bad news.
3) I want bees. I will have a yard big enough for bees, and I want bees for much the same reason I wanted chickens - they're small, cute, useful, fun to watch, and produce edible byproduct. Short of adhering the hive to the ground with concrete, I can find no way to prevent having a 200lb honey-coated dog, a broken hive, and several thousand really pissed off bees.
4) Newfies are a drool breed, and while I find the ability to fling long streamers of viscous slobber 20' or more impressive, it's not something I want happening in my livingroom unless I'm throwing a really good party.
5) Newfies are water dogs. They produce an oil that keeps their several coats of fur waterproof. Even after swimming in the sea for hours, a Newfie will be dry at the skin level. Know what that means? Means everything the dog touches will smell like a dog. Forever. Because it's an oil and won't easily wash off.
6) They have a 10 year life expectancy. I tend to have One True Pet of each breed, the one that's so perfect and wonderful and special snowflake that when it dies, I can't bear to buy another of that breed because there's just no way to even try to recapture the perfection of the original pet. If I have a Newfie now, and it's the One True Newfie, my future children would be at most 9 years old when it died. So right when they're getting to the age where I'd have a home-grown poo cleanup crew, I'd have no reason for it because I'd be unable to have dogs again. At that age, children are tough and stringy so it's almost impossible to get your investment back out of them even if you can find a gypsy to sell them to.
I kind of hope whichever gods are listening are taking note of all this maturity and virtue lately. I'd hate to think it's being wasted.
