Nothing. Can. Be. Further. From. The. Truth.
Dogs enhance our lives - don't take away from it. If dogs made our lives worse, we probably would have concluded long ago that we aren't meant to be "dog people". And that would have been OK - not everyone in this world is a dog lover, just like not everyone is a cat lover, or a turtle lover (how can you not love a turtle? They did nothing to you!). We all have our likes, our dislikes, and how we wish to live in this crazy world.
I am most definitely not one of those dog lovers who doesn't understand people who dislike the canine species (How can you possibly dislike it though? For shame!). If you don't like dogs and/or don't like the thought of having dogs, that is your choice - a valid choice. A choice up there with whether or not you want children, whether or not you want to eat meat on Good Friday (or at all), and whether or not you are going to have a healthy apple today or a piece of apple pie. There is no right or wrong answers to any of it - everyone is different in how they choose to live their lives, and as long as they aren't harming society as a whole and are obeying the laws, there really isn't much to criticize about it.
In this particular house, we have dog toys literally all over the place - mostly the work of our new baby dog who simply cannot resist trying out every toy we have accumulated through the years. We have Golden Retrievers, so there is going to be some hair on the floor. There is going to be multiple leashes - sometimes hanging up, sometimes thrown on the kitchen table. There are food bowls you can trip over, possibly some spilled water you may slip on. There might be a ball laying around with doggie drool on it, bedding and couch covers with more dog DNA than human DNA on it. Since I am training our latest addition to be a better member of society, you may even see a few treats in areas you would not otherwise expect to see a dog treat.
That's the real life of a dog lover - we don't feel handcuffed by our furry friends, we don't feel that feeding them is a chore, or that taking them for a walk is a waste of our time. If we need to spend an extra 30 minutes a day to play outside with them, we find that to be worthwhile time spent, not time wasted. If we panic when our dogs don't "look right", it isn't because we are paranoid (OK, sometimes I am - but that's when I call my sister!) - it is because we know how our dogs act every single day - and anything that goes against we are used to is seen as a potential problem.
We aren't looking to judge the "non-dog" society, and certainly aren't looking to be judged by them. We aren't doing anything wrong - since when is giving love and a home to a living, breathing creature something that isn't "right"? Or something we shall not be doing?
Yes, in this house, dogs outnumber people. That wasn't always by design, but it is our calling. If you saw the love they give my wife (and the love she returns back), you wouldn't question our intentions or wonder why we should stick to one or two - you would wonder why we don't move to the country somewhere and get even more (No, we will likely never own four dogs - unless we did fall into millions and could indeed buy that big country home). If you saw how I act around them, and how I play with them, you would have a smile on your face - not a look of bewilderment.
We live in a neighborhood of dogs - two of my neighbors have two each. I have seen other houses in my travels that have at least two, if not more.
So, yes - we have three dogs. Not one. Not two. But three. And they are big dogs. And we don't live in a mansion with a huge property (not even close!) They can get into trouble from time to time, and can even annoy us when they (Horrors!) decide to act like dogs.
But you know what? We wouldn't want it any other way.
