A DOG!?

Well, we finally did it. We took the big leap and got our first real pet (beyond one try at a hampster, and some fish). Chloe is her name, and she is a golden retriever/chow mix, although it's tough for me to see the chow in her.
We made the leap after many years of refusing to consent to our kids' and our own desires for a dog because "it'd be too much money" and "too much work".
But about 2 weeks ago a new neighbor moved in behind us. We got daily lengthy visits from Chloe, and the kids loved playing with her.
One day she brought us a gift. A dead skunk. Travis (our 10 year old son all the way to the left in the above pic) was man enough to pick it up (with bags on his hands) and throw it in the woods.. but that's another story. Which I'll post next as it is really a good part of our story.
The kids ran around the neighborhood with Chloe, and her owner, Lori, saw them as she was out searching in her car for her dog. She said that Chloe kept breaking through her fence, and she was going to have to fix it. She did fix it, but Chloe got through yesterday, and someone called the warden. Lori got a call saying that they had taken her to our county's pound, and if she wanted her she'd have to come get her.
Lori came to tell us that she was going to have to make a hard choice, and wanted to know if we wanted to keep Chloe. She's really a kids' rough and tumble dog, age 6, and she misses the fun she had with Lori's son before he went off to college. She just sits in the house most days now while Lori and her husband are at work, and Lori didn't feel that it was fair to her because she is such a social dog. She'd been struggling with what to do with her for a while, and with her being at the pound, she'd nearly decided to hope that someone adopted her (or else she'd probably get put down). Then she thought of how much fun Chloe had been having with our kids. So. We have a dog. A big dog. No easing into it. Just a big in house dog now. Nothin' to it, but to do it, right? :) Wow. A dog. My husband likes the idea of her being here when he's out on trips. The kids love having a dog to take care of (which by the way, we had a family meeting, and they all agreed to pitch in for dog food from their jobs, to walk her, and to set up a sweeping schedule so that the house gets swept twice a week). So, here we go. A new chapter in our lives. Family of 8, plus one canine (and a few fish).