Sandy and I have been living together for quite some time now. If there is one thing I love, it is waking up to her beautiful face every morning. The problem is that almost every morning since we started living together, instead of waking up to her pretty face – I wake up to her dog.

Being someone who grew up with only cats, I am still getting used to having a dog. I did attempt to have a dog once in my life. It was right after I got my apartment on Brigham Street in late 1996. I was working for Councilman Howard Lasher and his wife convinced me to take their pit bull puppy. After all, I was living on my own and thought a dog would be the perfect roommate – I was wrong – very wrong.

I took the dog home one night after work and after being in my house for less than an hour – he peed on my bed. I let that slide and after changing the sheets, took him out for a walk and then spent the rest of the evening playing with him. When it was time for me to go to sleep, I went to bed with my new “best friend” sleeping at my feet confident that I had made the right decision in taking the dog.

I woke up the next morning, walked the dog, and went to work keeping the dog safely contained in my kitchen. When I got home, I realized that I could not have made a worse decision in agreeing to take this dog. My neat and perfect house was destroyed in the span of eight hours. My phone books were eaten, my cordless phone and answering machine were broken, and he must have gone to the bathroom thirty times all over the kitchen. Before I even had my coat off, I stepped through what used to be my kitchen, grabbed the phone, and as soon as Councilman Lasher’s wife answered, I simply said, “Take the dog back.”

That was the one and only time I had a dog – until now. Don’t get me wrong, Lucky is a great dog. He is loving, well behaved and very likeable – he just has to be walked sixty-eight times a day. Maybe it’s me not being used to having a dog, but when I am outside walking this dog before my eyes are even open, I am not very happy because that is not the way I want to start my day. I would say that at least three to four times a week, the dog wakes me up. This week, he woke me up at 4:00am. Now I’m sorry, but although I am a morning person – even I don’t get up at 4:00am – but try telling that to the dog.

So although I would sometimes love to send him to Taco Bell, I am slowly getting used to having a dog in my life. The good news is that if having to get used to her dog is the worst thing about living with Sandy – I guess I’m pretty Lucky.