Dog and Education Thoughts

I only have my dog for a short time... so I have been exploring a lot.

See, the thing is I *love* this dog. She teaches me things, we have a good time together and she gets me out exploring the neighborhood. I have a gorgeous park right in my backyard and am too much of a ninny to explore with out a dog by my side. No one bothers you if you have a dog! It’s awesome. Plus, she's great with people and will be well behaved and sit or lay down if nervous kids or around and stuff like that. She's not that good with dogs, but I am trying real hard to train her! *oy*. I took her cross-country skiing yesterday and we had a blast!

I only have her for a short time because I have decided that I simply cannot have the ex in my life now. There's a weirdness of boundaries around the dog, it involves keys to her house and seeing her and 'hanging out' every time we make a dog exchange. Also, I am basically deeply disgusted (re: aforementioned lack of boundaries) with the ex at the moment and would like to have the power to make sure I don't see her... if I have the dog I can work out exchanges that are non-visiting exchanges. Drop off/pick up sort of things that wouldn't involve weird boundary violations. The thing is, also, that somewhere in there I stopped believing that she was the best one of us to have the dog, and I want custody now. Fancy Pants has really excelled as an only dog. She needs it and the ex and I had agreed on that... but the ex is kind of an animal collector. She loves them, and I get that... and she's not a bad pet owner or anything, but she's gotten another cat and another dog and Fancy Pants is my dog and I want what's best for her.

So. I asked my landlord if I could keep her full time. The ex has always magnanimously claimed that I can have the dog whenever I want. I hope she meant it, and I hope, hope, hope he says yes! It will mean a lot more consciousness about my day to day planning - got to make sure I let the dog out and walk her and exercise her enough. I think it will be good for me too -- and my downstairs neighbor has a dog so I do have some hope!

ALSO

I speak with my advisor about possibly switching into the plain Nurse Practitioner program today. I am nervous. I hope he can give me some good advice. I have decided that I will just tell him my honest thoughts and see what he has to say.