I’VE BEEN THINKING about dogs a lot lately.

It started a couple of weekends ago when we went to a birthday party and this beautiful, 1-year-old golden retriever was bouncing around in a room that was gated off from the larger party area, and everyone was going over and patting it and oohing and ahhing about how gorgeous it was.

The dog was so happy, it looked as if it were laughing. You know how dogs do that.

Well, my husband, Phil, says to me, “Do you want a puppy? She’s going to be bred and will have the pups in the fall and probably will have a dozen. Three pups are spoken for, so if we want one, we have to say so pretty soon.”

My heart leapt a little — just a little.

A big part of me would love to have a dog, but a bigger part doesn’t want the responsibility that goes along with having to find a dog-sitter if we decide to go somewhere for an extended period of time or board it at a kennel or take it with us.

Also, and more importantly, I’m pretty sure Pip and Bitsy, our rather spoiled cats, would not be pleased if we brought home a wiggling, yapping pup.

As it is, they rule the roost in our home, deciding when we get up in the morning and when it’s time to retire in the evening. Pip, a large black cat with yellow eyes and no tail, claws at things he’s not supposed to when he wants to go out, knowing we’ll relent, and jumps on window ledges when he wants to come in, looking frantic as if he’ll die if we don’t open the door immediately.

The cats want in and then they want out, and this goes on for a couple of hours until they crash and sleep for hours on end, looking so cute lying there with their paws over their eyes that we feel guilty for ever having scolded them when they pester us.

But then I think about the times I arrive home from work after a long day and just want to pick up the newspaper and read. It’s always at an inopportune time for Bitsy, a smallish black and gray cat who looks like a Maine coon. She whacks the paper down with her paw and lies on it, staring up at me as if to say “How dare you pay attention to anything but me?”

If we were to bring a dog home, I believe all hell would break loose.

Phil, who claims to be a dog person (he adores our cats but would never admit it), says dogs are much friendlier and more loyal than cats and you never have to wonder what a dog wants.

Felines are the opposite. They turn away when you ask them to come, won’t leave you alone when you seek solace and constantly keep you guessing as to what they want.

Dogs, he says, will do anything to please their owners, whereas cats try to sidle up only when they want something.

But I say dogs have an odor and bad breath and like to roll in stinky stuff outdoors — the smellier the better — whereas our cats smell fresh as the driven snow, don’t drool like dogs do and are pretty good company despite their foibles.

And overall their independent nature serves us well if we want to take off for a couple of days. They’ve got each other and don’t need us, as long as their bowls are full and the house is warm. A dog must be fed by human hand and walked several times a day.

I have good memories of our childhood dog, Sam, a large black dog who went everywhere with us and was loyal and protective and adventurous, just like us kids. Yeah, he smelled, but we were outside most of the summer, and when it was time to come in and go to bed we were so exhausted we didn’t care.

But now, as time marches on and we are getting older and have more time to do the things we want and go places we haven’t had a chance to go, having a dog might not be the best idea.

Yet, that golden retriever was pretty darned adorable.

Come to think of it, when Pip and Bitsy were kittens, just before we adopted them eight years ago, they did live with a golden retriever — a gorgeous, bouncy, happy, very tolerant dog.

And those kittens had a good time, climbing on its belly as it lay, paws in the air, looking resigned.

Amy Calder has been a Morning Sentinel reporter 27 years. Her column appears here Mondays. She may be reached at acalder@centralmaine.com

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