Thinking About a Puppy

I have some news to report: Billy and Blossom are mousers! It took them forty-five minutes together to catch a mouse and force it to submit to their will. Not bad. Blossom is now posted by the bathroom door, and Billy is re-tracing his hunting steps to search for any other mice. I think they have probably caught the only one here, but it's nice to see them get work done.

In other news, we are thinking about a puppy dog. Any ideas? Sal would like a Bernese Mountain Dog, but they are expensive, hard to get, and have really short life spans (less than seven years, more like four).