If you don’t like dogs you’d better skip this blog (it’s mostly photos anyway and I can’t claim any credit for them as they were taken by a guy we met in the park and was super keen to take these and many more photos of our pups). lf you do skip it, you will be missing the big picture question as reflected in the title. I’ve written before about the pros and cons of dog ownership. So I won’t go into any great detail here the blog is about celebrating Archie and Millie’s third birthday which was yesterday, we think.
That said this is an opportunity to reflect on the wisdom of doing what we did which was to get two dogs within the space of about three weeks of having retired. Given my constant whingeing about not being able to travel to exotic places i.e. those that require getting on a plane, you might think I’d be a bit resentful of having dogs or at least maybe wishing we had waited a while after retiring so we could do all our exotic travel. Well, maybe a bit but in terms of the big picture we think the decision was, and has been, about 95% positive (exercise for example, no gettting away from two one hour walks a day, talking to other dog owners, no sorry, that’s in the wrong column) and I don’t know about your life but percentage-wise that’s pretty bloody good for any life decision I have made. Yes, there are some downsides, like worrying about their health, Millie having an unexplained cough which meant a £45 visit to the vet to be told she was fine and yes, they’re expensive but hey, not expensive as my new drum set, but that’s for another time. And talking to other dog owners, that’s actually a negative. Yes, Archie did cause me to jump in the canal when he was a puppy and quite recently accidentally brought this bloke off his bike and Millie does worringly disappear for half an hour if she hears a loud noise, but just look at them, unless you really don’t like dogs or are a cat person, how could you not find them adorable?
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