Hell is other puppies.
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He would gladly accept those scritches at any time.
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Avoiding discomfort and having purpose in life are loosely related metrics, in my experience.
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I adopted a 12 year old black lab 3 years ago. He’s still alive and still wonderful. I will only adopt old dogs from now on and I highly recommend it.
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Mostly, it depends on how you define (and when you measure) happy.
The things that make us deeply, meaningfully, and lastingly happy are almost always things that require effort, and sacrifice.
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I don’t recall ever seeing much disagreement/argument over dogs (except for Pitbulls, the Dog of Peace[TM]). Cats are a different story of course (lovable companions vs. invasive species and murder/death/kill machines), and they are on the list of topics.
I don’t think anyone will disagree that raising a puppy can be stressful, but I am a bit surprised to find that quantitatively the stress is not that different from having a human baby.
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I absolutely love(all) older dogs, but losing them rips my heart out, chops it into tiny bits, then burns it on a pyre. Also I dunno about the US, but vet bills in the UK are nuts.
That’s why I’m currently dogless.
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Of course it’s stressful, it’s not a toy or a bandaid for your mental health. It’s a new life that has to be taught certain skills that are not inherent to it. Like, don’t eat that, stop yelling at everything that moves, don’t poo in the house and please stop dragging your anus along the carpet just so you can retrace your steps and lick your way back to where you started. It’s a responsibility that pays off with a dedicated friend. . . . Who will ultimately die and leave you miserable until you rescue your next friend. I wonder how many of these scientists had dogs themselves.
And dog breeders suck. Get a rescue.
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My dog ate a bunch of Scrabble tiles, so I took him to the vet.
.
.
.
.
No word yet …
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People watch too many talking dog movies and think, let’s get a puppy
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Where on earth were you keeping them?
Yeah, dogs live just long enough to break your heart… 
To put it succintly:
Baillie is a leicester fan, not a science fan.
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We’re right there with you. One pit mix and four cats later, and we are without animal companionship these last six years. My husband seriously cannot go through losing another friend, and we also really need to save for retirement.
What we will do is invite our neighborhood and friends’ doggos to stay with us during their vacations. It’s a win-win!
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You could also offer to foster animals for a local shelter.
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That’s worked well for us. 3 out of our current 4 cats are foster fails 
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Can’t. I mean we did it last summer, but they needed us to keep the kitty longer than what was agreed upon, and we almost canceled a trip for the sweet little guy. But a young woman saw Jay on the shelter site and since she was foster kid herself, she immediately felt a kinship.
(If we canceled our trip, we would have kept him.)
Also, neither one of us have had raises in over eight+ years, but our rent keeps increasing. We can’t afford to fail at fostering. 
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Personally I found kittens aren’t a big deal but with two huge caveats: I’ve only ever raised them with the help of their cat mom present which is probably easy mode, and I generally don’t own nice things.
(Preemptively before anyone decides to chime in about the importance of getting their cats fixed, I already wholeheartedly agree. The cat mom in the above example was one that a neighbour callously abandoned and came to me already pregnant.)
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Good point about the cat mom. Both times I raised a kitten they didn’t have their moms around (one foundling and one from a shelter). I have to say the bond with our latest guy is very strong though. He’s very affectionate, follows me everywhere, greets us at the door, always wants to interact or at least be with us. But he was a holy terror to the adult cats and a general lunatic as a kitten.
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Raising a young kitten without the mom around is an incredible amount of work. Cant recommend it, unless it’s just a situation that you suddenly find yourself in. Of course it’s worth it, I would do it again but it’s so stressful keeping them wee babes alive and happy.
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This is where we are right now. 5.5 months old. So cute and affectionate and often such a little jerk
It doesn’t help that one of the adult cats failed at setting boundaries when the stinker was 2 pounds. He kept attacking people’s feet this morning. I thought he wanted to play, and he did, but then went right back to attacking feet and getting soaked by the sprayer. Until my spouse put him in his lap. Apparently, relentless foot attacks are kitten code for wanting cuddles
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