This might be a little cliché but when Nickie came into my life I thought, 'Yeah, this is good'. It happened by accident. My son had just turned four and my husband was saying we should get a dog. I thought he was kidding. A puppy and a toddler? 'He's nuts', I thought. But then my mom got wind of it and she said we didn't have to get a puppy-puppy. We could get one of those dogs that failed the guide dog tests because they need homes too. They're trained and house broken and polite. That's what I wanted if I was going to get a dog. A polite one. I swear I must have researched it for weeks. My husband had forgot all about getting a dog, he never mentioned it after that first time. Problem solved right? Wrong! Now I was the one craving a dog! When I finally found a program that I liked and thought was reasonable, I sat my husband down and starting saying things like, 'You know, Jim, I've been thinking about expanding our family some more and I really think blah blah blah, womp womp,' just to get a rise out of him. You should have seen the color drain out of his face! He thought I was pregnant and turned white as a sheet! I pulled out some print outs I made from the guide dog program and went, 'SIKE, LET'S GET A DOG!' He didn't think it was very funny but I laughed about it for days. The place we got her from was all the way in Tennessee and when we brought her home, our son went ballistic. He was bouncing off the walls yelling about the new puppy and there was our little Nickie, just quiet as can be. She was trained not to bark with a bark collar, but my husband and I could tell she wanted to yell right back at the little human in her face. But she never did. She was so polite. I've only heard her bark about a handful of times, and that's only when she thought we were in danger. She was a good dog. I wish we had more time with her. She passed away a few months ago. She had stomach cancer and we put her down. She gave us ten good years. I can't be mad at the ol' girl. Never at my polite little Nickie.
~Anonymous