If you have never had a dog before you could always adopt a older to senior dog. You will get all the love with the added bonus of sparing yourself the puppy stage. Puppies are cute, puppy breath is great, puppies are also nightmares. It is starting to hit me now that my golden Gracie is a senior at 10. 20 years now I have had a golden retriever in my life. I really do not want to think of not having one, it is wrong on so many levels. The urge is starting to start looking at breeders again. I also keep telling myself I am crazy. Having raised 2 so far I know what I am in for, and while they are wonderful dogs, they do not come programmed to be the worlds perfect dog. I have gotten both of my girls at 9 weeks, both times in the winter months. These were family dogs, yet housebreaking and all the midnight, 2 am, 4 am walks, somehow, I was the one who froze. They are smart and easy to housebreak, still, lots of walks as they cannot hold it all night. Teething, teething is terrible for any puppy, but goldens who naturally want to have something in their mouth, landsharks. You survive the housebreaking, you survive the teething and they know several basic commands and at 6 months old you start gloating. Insert teenage phase. They become the equivalent to a hormonal teenage idiot roo, just bigger. They forget every single thing you have spent months teaching them and will instead give you the furry finger. You want to kill them, they try to kill you, they start thinking curse words are their names and you question your sanity and why did you need a dog. Finally something magical happens, they turn a year and a half old. If you have managed to stick it out they become overnight the smart, reliable, calm even tempered gentle dogs they are bred to be. You forget every single struggle, every sharp needle tooth nip, and have a best friend for the rest of their lives. Call me crazy, but yes, I am starting to look at golden pups again. Hopefully Gracie makes me wait a few more years, but, I am looking.
and the window sills on our floor to ceiling windows….. one day he tried to eat an electric fence insulator - that was still attached to some electric fencing the horses knocked down (ok ya I laughed poor Newton). 
Perry has a beautiful fade-to-black going on with her wing feathers! It's great you can give her that dust-bath time there.
all my cats know how to sit, beg, high-five, jump through my arms, leap from chair to chair, talk (sometimes too much ha!); they can be quite food motivated 
