I have had dogs most of my life and love them dearly. My most recent two I had for 13 and 14 years respectively. I never had children, so my dogs were my children, and were about the luckiest little pups around! I always hired people to come stay in my home when my husband and I were travelling, and was the dog mom who wrote a manual for the sitter in the care of my dog. Although I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to have at least one dog, my lifestyle of being single and working long hours during the week would not be fair to a dog, so I look at this as possibly giving me an opportunity to love on someone elses' dog when they are away.