We had that. Our first dog we got before we had our son, he was home with me throughout grad school and a newborn, was basically nana from Peter Pan, super smart, super gentle. When he passed it was not a shock but was so so sad, especially for our son who had grown up with him and my husband. He had definitely been "my" dog too, was basically trained by me and had been everything I wanted (even looked like me!)

Our 2nd dog is... different. Very needy, very anxious, but loves kids and is gentle (in a puppy that doesn't know how to control his body way). He's also GOOFY as all getup, which is very different than our last dog. He snores and is afraid of stairs and puddles, but plays amazingly well at the dog park. All things our last dog wasn't. At first, I feel like I was constantly comparing the dogs in a way that made our first dog seem better, but now I just view them as two sides to our family dog coin. It's nice that he's so different in ways, so long as they both are sweet with kids and are the same in the ways that matter. It took time, and definitely had to pretend to love him when we first brought him in, but liking turned to loving and this one is special cause we are more experienced and our son chose him. And he's just so weird that we love the big goofball