The voice of puppy-reason.

I spoke to the lady with the puppy this morning...... she still has that cute little Winnie The Poohdle, she was willing to come down some on the price...... and she was hoping we'd buy the puppy because she thought we would give it a good home.

Well, of course we would...... but after discussing the puppy for the umpteenth time this morning, I finally told my husband that I couldn't be trusted to make the final decision. In my mind, all I could see was that adorable little face and those button eyes. How could I say no to that puppy?

The bottom line is that our discussion wasn't about the cost of the puppy, which we could easily afford.  And it wasn't about buying a puppy, either.  The main question, which my brain spat out over the wrenching sounds of my heart-beats for that puppy, was this:   Did we want to commit ourselves to another dog for the next 12 or 15 years?   That's the question that I couldn't answer, because the button eyes and that curly apricot-colored puppy hair just got in the way of my brain.

I told my husband that the final answer had to come from him. (That makes me either very gracious, or very cowardly--- take your pick.)  My husband thought about it, seriously and without emotion. He said no, that he didn't want to add another pet to the household, that he didn't want to tie us down with another dog, that he didn't want to give our friends another responsibility when we're out of town. No. We shouldn't buy that puppy, no matter what the price-tag is on his cute little curly head.

I called the lady back..... told her all of the above.  I know it was the right, rational, sane decision, the right thing to do at this moment in time.  I'm sure Winnie The Poohdle will be bought by someone else in town who will give him a nice home.  And maybe they won't have three cats to take attention away from his cute little self.  (But actually, only one of our cats is inside the house.) And maybe they'll have a one-story house so that tiny puppy won't have to worry about climbing up so many stairs. (But of course I would have carried him up and down all of ours.)

As of this moment, all puppy-talk stops.  My husband made the right decision, which I knew all along he would. 

Pooh.