WHY DO YOU HAVE DOGS?

It's a question I get asked fairly frequently, especially since we've taken on Terra. It's a fair question. Dogs are a lot of money. They are a lot of work. They can restrict your movements, your freedom. They occupy a lot of your time. Double the dogs doesn't double any of the above factors .. it seems to triple them.

Except for poop. It quadruples the poop. . Seriously. It's some kind of physical phenomenon. Stephen Hawking should look into it

So, why dogs? When the vet bills or food bills roll in, when we're tired in the morning and don't feel like going anywhere but you get those four brown eyes staring at you .. I ask myself the same question

Today I got my answer.

It was a miserable day here in Toronto. The kind of weather I hate more than anything: Cold, grey and a cold stinging driving rain that almost hurts when it hits your face, that soaks your clothes through in seconds, that forces you to turn your head against it only to feel it slide down the back of your neck, wet and icy

I would take a blizzard over this any day. Without dogs I would have no reason to venture out in such shitty weather. I'd be huddled on the couch with Collette, watching B movies and drinking Bailey's Irish Cream and commenting: "You'd be fucking nuts to be out in this"

But there were those eyes. Collette had taken them out in the morning, it was now past the time we normally go for their afternoon weekend walk. They had been perfectly good, letting us watch a movie and eat breakfast, quietly waiting and now it was time, no it was past time and yes it's shitty but we really need to go ...

So yeh, I'm fucking nuts

I took them up to Earl Bales Park. We used to live closer to there and Hayley is very familiar with the park, the old road that leads down to it, the golf course that leads away from it, but Terra had never been. It's a big park, lots of trails and open fields and small woods. So I bundled the girls in the car and away we went

It was grey. Rainy. Cold. Miserable. But Hayley went down this familiar road with her tail wagging, finding trails she had not been in on in years and unerringly leading me along them; Terra went racing up and down the steep hills of the ravine, splashing through the rain puddles, barking in the trees .. at one point she raced straight up the side of a 6 ft tall brick wall and stood up there staring down at me as if to say "Wow, do you see where I am now?"

We played ball in a big open field and threw the stick on the fairway of the golf course. The rain sliced down the whole time. But the girls were running and barking and leaping and playing in the puddles

My eyes were slitted against the rain and it was sliding down my neck and my fingers were freezing.

But I was smiling

That's why I have dogs.