Buying a Dog

Good choice. However, I'd go for a miniature poodle, as a full sized poodle would be too big. Poodles need grooming and that can be very, very expensive. Poodles are also biters...Quick, EFFECTIVE bites that draw blood.

If you have kids, I'd avoid the poodle, however. I'd then go for a Golden retriever and I'd hire a dog walker to walk the dog 3-4 times a day.

I had an Irish Setter named Kelly, too. She was the sweetest dog, had severe ADHD, and was kind of dumb. She'd run forever, if we let her off the leash. And no food was safe anywhere in the house -- the definition of "chow hound" simply said, "See AETH's dog Kelly." Oh, yes, she also thought she was a lap dog.

My sister rescued her: She wandered into the barn where my sister kept her horse. You could count every rib. When sis tried to take her back to her "home," sis found that her owners had moved, had left Kelly in her outdoor pen, and Kelly had managed to escape and come to where she'd gotten food before. We loved her instantly, and she was a great member of the family.

Interesting. My husband found our Kelly in a lumber yard way across the city (it had the best deals, as I remember), skin and bones and still pretty much a puppy, and asked the yard people about the dog. They told him it had been hanging around for several days. So husband brought him home so we could feed him and find him a home. I said, oh, he's got a home right here.. and that was that.
We had a yard, and he soon had a fine dog house in it.. we took him for obedience training and husband soon enough went running with him most days.

On poodles, one word of caution. I'm somewhat allergic to dogs (cats much more) and was more allergic to a friend's poodle than I was to Kelly the setter, and way more than to the dog of my avatar, a corgi, who was close to non allergenic to me.

Corgis have their own need to be out and about and herding, so I wouldn't consider them for apartments either, unless you stay in the apartment with them and take them out frequently. With my corgi, I had a house, a biggish yard, and a job where I could take him to work.

Poodles have many allergies, too.

apartment living? Cairn Terrier

They also bark. Something to do with "water on the brain", probably due to faulty breeding.

Poodles are the smartest of the smart...Water on brain, or not.

Cairn Terrier a.k.a. Toto in the Wizard of Oz


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toto_(Oz)

And your little dog, too!!!

I wasn't clear. It's Cocker Spaniels that have the reputation for water on the brain. Poodles? Just overly playfull.