I never really considered myself a dog person.  My wife on the other hand loves dogs.  When we got married last year she had to send her mutt to live with her parents as I have relatively bad allergies and so the pup couldn’t come to live with us. While I like dogs just fine (besides being scared of any that weigh over 20lbs after being bitten a couple times when living in Mexico) I have never had much interest in having my own dog, for a whole host of reasons.

TO start off I am not fond of picking up their excrement, having their hair all over my house, needing to worry about going home to let Fido out, having to find a dog-sitter for when were are out of town  – I could go on and on.

In fact I am going to … I know I never want a dog in my bed, don’t particularly want to spend my hard earned cash to get Fido spayed, de-wormed, groomed,

through puppy school, etc — and heaven forbid have to deal with some $2500 hip displacement surgery when the the only rational decision is to have the dog put down.

To be completely honest, being an adventurous traveller I’d probably end up eating dog if I were in China and it were offered to me.

SO I don’t sound like much of a dog person, right?

WELL, a few weeks ago, at my wife’s insistence, I agreed to make a trip out to Daybreak to go see a puppy that she had found on KSL.

Knowing that my arms would break out into a rash upon petting it — I was sure we would just play with it for a few minutes and then go home.  The imminent rash never came.

That’s right, my wife tracked down a pup that I’m not allergic that doesn’t hardly shed– a hypo-allergenic breed. Before I knew it we were loading the 9lb, 10wk old pup into the car to take home.

NOW four weeks later her name is Lucy (we named her on our 1- year anniversary).  She has been de-wormed, has a crate, toys, food and snacks, a tracking chip implanted in her shoulder, and an appointment to be spayed.  She is also in her second week of puppy school.  She is sweet as can be, and very mellow and obedient for being only 3 months old.  Since we’ve had her my wife and I have begun to take lots of walks and make more trips to hike in the mtns, and the TV has stayed off.  I think my blood pressure might even have gone down.  Having Lucy also makes our lil’ duplex feel more like a home.  As my wife and I share the tasks of taking care of her, coordinating and working together — I can see how we might operate if we were to have a child soon.

SO the short and sweet of it is that I now see that the many benefits of having a dog really can outweigh the tasks and work associated with it.  Just look at that face!

I guess the point is that many of the perceptions I had about dogs and dog owners were other people perceptions that I took on, and it took me trying something new (listening to my wife’s plea’s) to realize I really am a dog person. Does this apply to anything in your life?