Kaye has been asking and begging and crying and pleading and demanding and every other influence strategy she can think of for forever and a day in trying to persuade us to let her have a husky . . . this includes six months of chanting "get a dog get a dog get a dog" everytime she gets into the backseat of the car.

Lorraine caved in by making a deal that if Kaye got great grades then she could have a dog.

Well . . . as the deadline for finals got closer and closer, Kaye’s influence strategies changed to other tactics as her stress levels also went way up as it looked more and more like she wasn’t going to make the cutoff level for grades.

In fact, she was stressing herself out so much that Lorraine finally caved completely (Daddy caved a long time ago but stuck to Mommy’s decision for the whole untied front approach to parenting).

So . . . new deals were struck.

We are adopting an animal that has been rescued from the streets and will be nursing it back to health in a halfway house kind of deal.

This is Kaye’s chance to show she can care for something as dependant as a dog and for us to have a dog for a couple months. We’ve made it very clear to Kaye that while dogs are incredibly cool animals (we have cats but no dog and I’m really a dog person), our pets are members of the family and with that idea comes a very great responsibility to them.

If all goes well, we will adopt the dog for the long term. If not, then at least she will have been nursed back to health and we will have been able to prepare her for a more permanent home.

See more photos of Kaye and her dog . . . here.