I think I used to be kind of like you. I grew up with cats so, like you, I knew all about pets.

Mainly I didn’t want the responsibility of taking care of a pet. I also didn’t want one of them to ruin my furniture! And, I hate fur on my clothes.

And then my oldest daughter brought home a cute, fluffy puppy on my youngest daughter’s birthday. And I said, “I hope that isn’t yours!”

I didn’t want a little white puppy. I didn’t want to take care of it. I didn’t want anything to do with it. My daughter took him home with her when she left the house and I breathed a sigh of relief.

But then she kept going out of town and we had to pet sit it.

The next thing you know, I’m out at PetSmart buying the dog toys and extra special treats and chews. I bought cute outfits and started taking Brody to the dog park.

When my daughter got engaged and moved to another state, she couldn’t take Brody with her. She and her fiancé were building a house and there wasn’t a fence. She asked me to keep him until she could fly him to Indiana. Because of the difficulty taking a dog on an airplane, Brody never made it to Indiana.

Two years later, after my daughter moved back home for a brief time, no longer engaged, and then left again to take a job in Arizona, my ex husband begged our daughter on my behalf to leave Brody with me.

Pretty funny to go from “I hope he’s not yours!” to “Please leave him with me!” But that’s where I am as I type this with Brody lying right next to me.