Our puppy -- almost a year old now and still definitely a puppy -- is adorably cute, cuddly and incredibly gentle with children. Because he's almost 60 pounds, I'm sure he is at least a small deterrent to thieves, even if he isn't all that intimidating to look at. However, it is because of the dog that we had to replace our back door in a relative hurry (holes being less ignorable than a little rot and a cracked pane -- yes we are that pathetic that we could ignore those). Going away from home adds more complications than ever. We have to chase The Girl away from the dog food daily and he likes to use the area near our raspberries as his private poo-poo zone.

This morning when I got home from taking the boy to school, he'd peed in the kennel. All over the walls, floor, and himself. I have a very clean dog now -- he got his second bath in two days, which is a lot considering we normally only get around to bathing him every month and a half or so and I have a very clean floor in the dining room. I would have been happy not to have either though.

Now, I'm just trying to remind myself why I thought a dog was such a good idea. Oh right -- cute.