I’ve been associated with and had dogs as pets from when I was a baby until I was over fifty.  My baby blanket took on anthropomorphic characteristics, because I called it Doggy and took it everywhere with me.  Until I was five.  I came home from school one day and Doggy was GONE.  Don’t worry.  Mom gave him back to me when I was thirty.  I stared with incredulity at my Doggy and said, “That scrap of a rag is my Doggy!”  We had a good laugh.

I had dog figurines.  I still have a few of them, but I’ve re-homed some by making them available to others in a yard sale.

We lost Millie, our last dog, a year and a half ago.  We’d decided not to get more dogs after Millie, but we hadn’t expected her to leave us so soon — she was only seven.  Being dogless seemed strange at first, but we did have four cats.  And since then, we’ve adopted four more kittens since then.  Theoretically, we’re fostering the four kittens, but I’m not sure we’d be able to let them go to new homes, so we’ve pretty much accepted that we have eight cats.