Doggie Love

The other day I was flipping through a dog book at Barnes and Noble. As I was doing this my boyfriend suddenly came up behind me. "What are you doing?" he said. "You are a dog book!" I had to laugh, because it's so true. I am a walking dog book. In fact, I will confess that I am capable of identifying just about every dog breed that is currently recognized by the AKC (and also some breeds that aren't). I will never forget the look of surprise on that woman's face in Boston when I walked up to her and said: "Excuse me, is that a Miniature Australian Shepherd?" Ha. Priceless.

Like every dog lover, though, I have my favorites.

• Papillon
• Siberian Husky
• Shiba Inu
• Shih Tzu
• Austrailian Shepherd
• German Shepherd
• Shetland Sheepdog

Okay, now here's the part where I start to get to the point.

Lately I've been dreaming (and writing) about things that I'd like to do in the future--or rather, things that I'd like to accomplish within the next ten years. That might not strike you as necessarily weird, but for me it kind of is. I've always been a "fly by the seat of your pants" kind of person. This means that I don't really think that far ahead. (About anything.) Recently, though, I've been thinking a lot about where I want to end up in the next decade or so, and--more importantly--who I want to be. This will probably sound silly, but one thing I know for certain is that I want to have a Papillon dog. I've wanted to be a Papillon owner ever since I was a little girl, but couldn't because of my mother's allergies. I still continued to beg her for a dog, however, and so eventually she caved and we got a hypoallergenic dog instead--a Shih Tzu! Her name is Bridgette. She's ten now, and she's a great dog, but I still want to fulfill my dream of owning a Papillon someday. So in the next five years I hope to have one of these little guys following me around the house. (Or apartment, or wherever I may be.)

Someday (and this one is more of a long shot) I would also like to own a Siberian Husky.

And this is how I would like my Papillon and Siberian Husky to get along.

Don't worry, I plan to do more with my life than become a dog owner. This was just a fun little thought that I simply couldn't go without sharing, mostly inspired by my discovery of the above video.