I’ve owned four different dogs in my life. Never been licked by any of them.
Really? I think the British and American fancies have done a great job with the breed; the dogs have lovely personalities and are very healthy on average with great care being taken to health-test dogs to prevent proliferation of the issues they are prone to. They are dwarfed because a dwarfed dog of their type was considered functionally useful for herding [everything but sheep], driving, ratting, guarding, and hunting in the mountains of Wales for the last 3000 years or so; not because someone thought it was cute and inbred a bunch of dogs to look that way.
She’s got a lot to say about ‘the victims of human breeding programs for purebred dogs’, too (pertaining especially to the sensationalist, anti-purebred special Pedigree Dogs Exposed which got so many people excited). Most of which I strongly agree with.
Didn’t mean to abandon my thread…my computer went down and now I’m heading off to work shortly, so I haven’t read all the responses yet, but…
UPDATE ON THE KITTEN:
I found her a foster home where she’s fed and safe and happy until I can find her a permanent home. 
That’s so nice of you Audrey. She sounds like she’ll make a lovely pet for someone.
Slobber? Yes, many do. Some breeds are notorious for slobbering. Some don’t. My black Lab does not slobber.
Stink? Some dogs can if they’re left outside all the time and never properly groomed. Dogs pick up odors from their environments. If you take care of them, they don’t have offensive odors. A bad odor on a well-taken care of dog can be a sign of illness. Not a problem with my dog or any other dog I’ve had in the past. They’ve all been indoor dogs and have had regular grooming. Regular brushing for the short-haired ones and professional grooming for the long-haired ones. It’s my experience if you keep a clean home and the dog spends most of its time in the home, neither the dog nor the home will stink.
Dogs do shit. All living beings excrete. My dogs have had proper training however. Dogs can be trained to only urinate and defecate outside and signal their owner when they need to do so. My present dog has not had an accident inside the house in nearly five years. I leave it up to him most times to let me know when he has to go outside and don’t think twice about it. I only have to deal with the shit when I go outside to clean it up.
And all of my dogs have been spayed or neutered. I firmly believe in it.
Oh, I’m so happy to hear that! 
Yep - super masculine
ETA - good news on the kitten!!
She’s saying they make the breeds as healthy as possible within their extremes and mutations, and I’m saying (and other critics are saying) the mutations and extremes themselves are the problem.
(I’m hoping her foster mom will fall in love with her and keep her, but I’m still gonna take cute baby kitty pictures and post them on Facebook and Craigslist…) Shhhhh…
ahem
And here.
Ditto! You forgot to add “bark and yelp and make other mega-annoying loud sounds.”
If you had some radioactive material, you could have put the cat in a box. That way it never dies.
You like the smell of ammonia permanently permeating your house? Cat piss freaking stinks, and its the only reason I won’t keep them, and I like them generally. But without fail, I can always tell a cat household almost immediately upon entering despite a well-tendered litterbox. That stench of their urine is just sickening to me. Sorry cats. I’ll take the random stinky dog farts that dissipate rather quickly. Cat piss stench NEVER goes away.
Are you fucking kidding me? Yes, they should.
Again with the sociopath thing? They’re fucking CATS! They’re not part of society; they’re fucking animals. I love that according to the SDMB, if you don’t worship Teh Kitteh, you’re now a sociopath. The bar has never been lower, lemmetellya.
Why? A dog’s protective nature is one of the first things early humans would have harnessed them for. The main reason old dears don’t have large, ferocious-looking dogs is because they couldn’t guarantee always being able to control them, not because they don’t want them. So, if an elderly person needs to rely on a smaller dog, she should have every right to train it to bite people who enter her space uninvited.
If you can be devoid of positive feelings for teh cute kittehs and puppies, you’re definitely on the sociopath ladder by my scale.
Glad to hear it! Thank you.
[quote=“ivan_astikov, post:96, topic:547457”]
Her space? So someone who accidentally bumps the “old dear” or brushes by her when it’s crowded is allowed to get bitten? Within the circle of its leash can be a pretty big area.
Coming from you, that’s…meaningless. I’m having trouble expressing how little your evaluation of mental imbalances really counts for something.