My goal in life is to be as good of a person my dog already thinks I am. ~Author Unknown

So the cover story of this week's New York magazine is about dogs and how we treat them as family members, and are they even dogs anymore. And it got me thinking about a conversation I had with my father on my birthday last week.

After he wished me a happy birthday he said "I want you to see if you can list every dog we had from the time you were born." I waited for him to tell me what my prize would be if I could do it, but he didn't offer anything up but because I'm always up for a challe...