Puppy Fever

...boy, have I got it bad.

I've been a little lazy about recording any substantive thoughts on this blog in recent days (well, okay, recent months) because I'm not trying to foist a foster dog off on anyone at the moment, so I don't need to make a journal about that, and Dog Mob is not learning anything particularly unique (they're just practicing/proofing various semi-basic competition things that I'm trying to improve) so there's no point in me writing about that either, as infinitely better instruction on those topics can be found elsewhere.

But anyway, for the past... oh, eight months or so, I've been wrestling with on-and-off bouts of puppy fever.

This is, let me emphasize, a really stupid problem to have. It's stupid because I do not need a puppy in my life right now. Two dogs is a good number to have in our home. I like having two dogs. I can walk them easily around the neighborhood, I can supervise them easily on hikes and at the dog park, I can even take them on errands with me and juggle both leashes in one hand while lugging around a sack of dog food or take-out Chinese food or whatever in the other.

We're in a good place in our lives right now, Dog Mob and me. The mutt monsters are always eager to jump up instantly and play whatever training game I want to do, they will keep going as long as I'm interested in teaching them, and they settle down and go to sleep with no complaints if I need to work on something else for 14 hours a day (which, lately, I do. A lot. Because I'm an idiot who puts book deadlines way too close to each other).

We still have plenty of challenges ahead, plenty of things left to learn and do together, a whole long road of hurdles and obstacles unfurling in front of us since I decided to go ahead and take a shot at CDSP obedience with Pongu (and Crookytail, at least for a CD-C. I'm pretty sure he can get that, albeit probably with ugly scores).

So... why do I keep dreaming about a puppy? I don't need one. There's no logical reason I should want one. My current dogs are happy and eager workers (to the point I've taught them, at least, and any deficiencies in our current level of actual trial performance are 100% up to me to fix), our lives are pretty content, we have a smooth and easy rhythm to our days. Why rock the boat?

I don't know. But I look at friends and acquaintances happily bringing home their new performance puppies, and I stalk their Facebook pages mercilessly for pictures and updates, and I dream and dream of having a Real Performance Dog.

I am such an idiot sometimes.