Onalee, you summed it up perfectly. When we lost our yellow lab, Sunny, it was a long time before we even went looking for another dog. We found Feeney at a shelter when he was just as big as his head. He was puppy of the week. There were two requests for him ahead of us, so my husband said, put one in anyway. We'll never get him ... he's a Puggle and they were the designer dog of that year. Well, surprise! We did. We grew to love him so much that we got the somewhat evil Daisy as a back up ... thinking about how devastated we were at the last loss. Even though Daisy can be a little tough to love ... she makes a horrible growling sound when you pet her ... but that's just her "purr" -- I can't imagine not having her as part of the family.