“No we cannot go down to the store and get a dog.”

I’ve said that so many times in the past six months, I must say it in my sleep.

The dog conversation happens over breakfast, lunch and dinner and fills every minute in between.

“Mummy, could we go down to the store and get a dog?”

Me: “No. Not right now. And you don’t really buy a dog from the store the way you buy eggs or butter, at least not in my house.”

Long pause.

“Okay, what about now? Are you ready. I’ll go get my shoes...”

Me: “Still no.”

“But why not?”

Answer: “We already have one.”

The trouble is, the dog we have will probably never rescue a child from down a well, dig up lost treasure, or foil a bank robbery they way they do in the movies. In fact, he’s slept through three major hurricanes and several break-ins. He is really sweet and very sleepy.

When my daughter gets something into her head, she is deadly serious. She does not give up and she does not forget.

For a while she waited in hope that a lonely St Bernard would show up at our door. (See ‘Beethoven’ movies one through eight.)

When that fell through she started plotting. The other day she was in town with my mother.

“Let’s just check in at the pet store,” my daughter suggested breezily. “Let’s just have a look.”

My mom fell for it. Luckily, the puppies were somewhere else that day.

As they walked out of the store, my daughter said: “Darn I really wanted to get a puppy!”

My mom said: “I thought we were just looking.”

My daughter was like: “Yeah, looking, right ...”

Anyway, she’s picked out her Halloween costume. She’s going to be ‘How Much is That Doggie in the Window?’ (see the 1952 Patti Page song).

“It will be easy,” she said. “You just have to make a window. Oh yeah, and maybe we could buy a great Dane to go with the costume...”