Dear Neighbor-

The other day I went on a walk alone. I crossed paths with you walking your dog. You and your husband are older than us, but do not have kids (not my business). But you have your dogs and take good care of them, and you don't dress them up so you've earned points in my book. You both seem like really interesting people. Luckily, our family has a dog because otherwise I'm not sure what else we would talk about. All of our conversations revolve around dogs. 

Recently, I decided enough is enough and that I need to take a proactive approach to expand our conversation topics. As we talked the other day, I made a conscious effort to think outside the doggie box. I thought it was going well until a lull came in our conversation. You filled the silence by asking how my dog was doing. Not my children, not my husband, not me- our dog. I was a bit stumped by that one. I responded, "Oh, fine. She's a funny little dog." I sensed it was an unsatisfactory answer, but I honestly couldn't think of anything else to say about my dog that could actually be interesting to a human. 

I've thought over the last few days how I could have handled that question better. I'm really more accustomed to fielding questions about the people in my house. We just have different life experiences and perspectives. Please help me understand what you want to know about my dog.

Do you want to know:

• the latest weird thing she ate and yacked up in my house?
• how many times a day she chases lizards?
• the last time she had a dingleberry?
• how many hours a day she sleeps?
• how much food she eats in a day?
• where she likes to lay in the sun?
• how many hours a day she spends cleaning her bottom?
• which toy is her favorite?
• the last doggie bottom she sniffed?
• the last human bottom she sniffed?

These are the only things I can think of to report about my dog. Please let me know if these are the kinds of things you want to know about or if there is anything I'm missing. It would help me out a ton.

Thanks!