[wdfifteen]

Thank you to everyone who has responded. It's nice to be among a group of friends.

Vicki and I had a get-away planned for Sunday - Tuesday. Had a house/dog sitter all lined up and reservations at a cabin in the hills of SE Ohio and a day of horseback riding. We planned to cancel, but changed our minds. It was good to get away. We had time to talk a lot about our future - you pay more attention to the future when you don't have so much of it left. We talked at length about pets and our options with them.
One comment Vicki made that really sums up the life of Owen was, "Poor Ows, he was never comfortable in this world."

1. Let one of the cats move into the house - pretty quickly vetoed by unanimous consent.

2. Get a pound puppy - She thinks it's an OK idea, but I'm not so sure. We have birthdays coming up. She'll be 70 and I'll be 74. Our dogs have lived to be 13, 10, and 10 and all died prematurely. If a puppy lived to be 13 I would be 84 if I live that long. I don't like the numbers.

3. Rescue a mature dog - we both have had very bad experiences rescuing grown dogs. It's still a possibility, but we would have to have guarantees that if the dog had behavior problems it could go back.

4. Get a Springer Spaniel puppy. Vic had a Springer when I first met her. It was a wonderful dog, smart, calm, and beautiful (like her!). I could live with a dog like that, and I like the idea of raising a puppy of some sort IF WE GET ANOTHER DOG.

5. We agreed to sit on it through the summer and see how we feel about another dog then.