(Sigh). Love and Time are both funny things. Not in the LOL or ha-ha kind of way, but in the odd, surreal way that time plays in our lives, especially with pets. We all know before we welcome home that puppy, kitten, dog, cat, horse, rabbit, bird, or whatever pet fills your heart with love, that there is a ticking clock playing in the background. While I have had many of the above-mentioned pets in my life, I'm going to talk about dogs because their lifespans are no where near as long as we humans need them to be. So when we welcome a dog into our home, our family, and our lives, it is a commitment for the next decade--or if we are truly lucky--the next 15, 16, or even 18 years. Having large dogs (my Siberian Huskies and my adopted mixed breeds of German Shepherd and Akita, and Husky, Chow, and Shepherd, I know going in the time is on the shorter end of things. When I first embarked upon life with five Siberian Huskies--two a year apart in age, then two years later we added three p...