Dogs

Dan and I think John will be asking for a dog soon. He doesn't talk yet, but he points out *every* dog he sees, whether in print or on the street. He prefers books with pictures of dogs and his (current) favorite book involves a young boy, his dog, and a frog. He literally spends 15+ minutes each day looking through the boy and dog book to point out what the dog is doing in each picture. Did a dog bark a few blocks away? He'll point out the window in its direction. We've firmly decided we won't get a dog before he asks for one, but as his fascination with dogs grows, the idea that we'll someday get a dog becomes more and more normal to me.

Before we left on our trip, I looked into raising a guide dog puppy because I have no idea how to raise a dog and having the help of an organization would be good. Once I got to Prague, though, the idea of having a dog became a lot more reasonable because I was exposed to pleasant dogs. People in Prague raise really good dogs. In ten minutes on the Munich subway, I got barked at more than in two weeks in Prague, yet there were about 5-10 times as many dogs in Prague compared with Munich. In Prague, people rarely use leashes, the dogs walk by their owners instead and do not even sniff at strangers, much less bark. (John did get sniffed at once, but that was after I spent five minutes talking with the dog's owners.)

The best illustration of how well-behaved Prague dogs are happened on my sixth or so day in the city. I had just gone to the grocery store and needed to wait for a tram across the street from it. Before I left the store, a woman had leashed up her dog to one side of the grocery store door. Though I strugged getting the stroller out through the door, directly next to the dog, the dog totally ignored me. I walked across the street to wait for the tram (which I just missed - so I had a 10 minute wait for the next one) and spent the time watching the dog. Not a single bark, sniff, or pant in the direction of an exiting or entering customer. Coming out of the store right before the tram arrived, the dog's owner took the leash off, put it in her purse, and the two walked away together.

I think could handle a dog like that.