a boy and his dogs

Jack-Attack loves dogs. Looooooves them. He crawls around on all fours and barks fairly often. Goes hyper nuts when we see one outside or at Petsmart. The tear-jerking part of this story is ...

... we don't have one.

(Ok -- that fact isn't really jerking any tears from me. I encounter enough poop and pee and drool around here to last a lifetime, thank you very much.)

Seriously, though, I really am amazed at how much the kid loves dogs. He's not scared of them, not one shred. We have met big, tall dogs at the park and they will put their feet up on his chest and lick his face and he laughs. Laughs! A little fear might do him some good, really.

So here is what we settle for in place of our own:

Puppy-face jammers and a big dog book.

This dog book is too cool for school. It has parts where you can pet the dog's fur and wag their tails and whatnot. And it's simply titled, "DOG."

This one used to scratch itself, but Jack tore the leg off about two minutes after we bought it. (You can actually spot the leg lying on the floor next to Jack in the above photo.)

I keep taping it back in place and he keeps tearing it off again. I tell him to be gentle, but he doesn't get it. This is how it usually ends up:

Or:

Or, as of this morning, it was seen on the bookshelf in this pitiful state:

And that, my friends, is why we don't have a dog.