How it all began

My husband and I lived together for a little over 10 years before we got married. People ask me from time to time if getting legally married changed the nature of our relationship. I've always said no, because I believe that marriage is a process more than a status. But I follow up by saying that buying a house together did cause some big changes in our relationship. So I guess you could say that going and getting legally married didn't really change our relationship because our lifestyle was still the same the day after as it was the day before.

However, owning our own home after years of renting was a significant change in our lifestyle which caused us to see parts of each other that we hadn't encountered before. In our rental days house issues like the plumbing or the electric were things we lived with or jury-rigged to work. After all this wasn't really our house, so the object was to make it as comfortable to live there as we were willing to afford (or bug our landlord about). Having our own home, now the leaky faucets and cracked driveway could lead to lengthy and expensive projects, multiple trips to the hardware store and lots of frustration. I saw in my husband a need to do things "correct" not like all the half-assed stuff he had to deal with in our old apartments, this was his house and a reflection of him. On the other hand I wanted all the cool features I liked about everyplace I had ever seen or lived combined into one kick-ass oasis away from the rest of the world. Sometimes these visions clashed and so it goes.

But was does this have to do with cats and dogs you ask? Well, the recent entrance into our home of this pooch signifies a big lifestyle change, perhaps even bigger than owning our first home. The idea for this blog is to document those changes and perhaps learn a little about myself in the process. A google blog search for coton de tulear didn't bring me much that wasn't either breeder blogs which were way too cutsey and fawning for my tastes (and mostly to advertize their new litter offerings) or in french. So maybe this blog will be of interest to those who

• Haven't owned a dog before (or had a bad experience owning a dog before)
  
• Are introducing a dog into a household of cats or vice/versa
• Own or are thinking about owning a coton de tulear
• Want to see cute pictures of puppies and cats (thus saving those on my social networking sites the constant barrage)

So, if you're out there let me know!