I Know I'll Never Love This Way Again

The Nashville Knucklehead and Exador were nice enough to link to my New Orleans elegy and my site meter runneth over. While poking around Exador's site, I came across his bittersweet story of the life and death of his beloved chocolate lab Montgomery.

RUABelle and I had to put our 14 year companion Priscilla to sleep last November.










We were blessed to share our lives with her from the cradle to the grave. As you can imagine, the sadness of losing her was pervasive and extreme, but lately I've noticed RUABelle cruising the www.petfinders.com website several times a day.

I've seen her do this when shopping for a car, clothes, furniture, etc. It eventually escalates to obsession as she asks me about 20 choices per day of whatever she's researching. But in the end, she always makes excellent, well-reasoned choices.

However, this is not a car or a set of dining room chairs. This is a potential family member. My question to the blogosphere is: How do you know when it's time to get another pet? I've always said that you have to open your heart and the right animal will find you, but I may be a little naive. We have two cats that have contentedly moved up to alphapet and betapet status, so I'm concerned how they might react to another dog(s!) Yep, that's right, she occasionally shows me brother/sister pairs on the web.

Help!