This is a great dog, if you love dog urine

Tonight was our first dog meeting. We're trying to find one that fits our temperament. Sara and I are laid back people - our perfect night is spent curled up on the couch watching reruns of The Golden Girls. We needed to find a dog that agreed.

For weeks, we've been talking about adopting an Italian Greyhound. Dogs 101 says they hate the cold so much, they're often trained to pee indoors. And since I get all of my knowledge from TV, that sounded perfect. Also, they do funny things like this:





The idea of a dog that walked on its two front paws appealed to me almost as much as never having to walk one in a New York winter. We are apartment people - there's no just letting them run around the yard for us, because there is no yard. Every time a dog needs a walking, we're adding the several minutes of just getting downstairs and outside to the equation. The brutality of a New York winter plus the wind chill of living half a block from the river makes a dog that prefers to pee inside a great choice.

We were getting a visit from a woman who runs an Italian Greyhound foster operation. She was checking out our apartment to assess if we would be good dog owners within 8 minutes. I'm not sure what she'd find to tell her otherwise. Unless we were hoarders, there weren't going to be any significant red flags.

"Oh, look, a book called, 'How to Serve Dog.' Clearly you're dog lovers."

"Yes. Though it's a cookbook."

The idea of totally freaking out a dog rescuer made me laugh as I cleaned our apartment. We're relatively clean people anyway, but we wanted to put our best foot forward. It's as if we were saying, "look at how nice a place this is for a dog to destroy."

The night started rough when the foster lady couldn't find our place. She called for directions and it was a complete mess. I don't know what is worse - when someone can't give directions, or when someone can't take directions. The following is a shortened version of the conversation we had.

"I can't find your place. Which way do I turn?"

"Do you know what street you're on?"

"I'm in front of a cycling store."

"I'm not sure where that is. Can you see a street sign?"

"I'm in front of a cycling store."

"Yes, but do you see anything else?"

"Let me see if I can see the name of the cycling store."

Five more minutes of Abbott and Costello-esque directions later, she was in our apartment with her test pooch. She didn't bring one we'd actually adopt - she just wanted to see if our home was fit for for a dog. Finding no cookbooks, we passed the test. But the dog breed didn't pass ours.

The foster lady specifically told us that she was watching her dog so he doesn't pee everywhere. That's right - a fully trained dog who has been with a loving family for a few years would pee on my wall given two minutes of unsupervised conversation. She also said they need to be walked every three hours - and even the ones that can be trained to use a pee pad need to still go outside for exercise, even if they hate you for forcing them into the cold. In other words, we'd be adopting the dog equivalent of a high-maintenance teenage girl. Our dream of sitting on our couch with our dog watching the Golden Girls seemed as lost as this woman would be if you gave her directions to anywhere.

Too bad - I had been excited at the idea of adopting a two legged little dog that wasn't actually from Italy. I was going to name it Snooki.