Who needs a dog?

My young son, who had a deep and abiding love for animals and regularly tells me that he has plans to be a farmer and a zoo keeper when he grows up, is desperate for a pet.

He knows all the reasons that we aren't able to at this time of his life but that hardly makes him feel better.

I had no idea how desperate he was to have something to call his own until he was out shopping with his grandmother one day.

Browsing through a Big Lots! to find something worthy to take home, he spotted it up on a shelf and claimed it forever as his.  "Look!  Pet fish!"

If you're guessing that it's a glass paperweight, you win.

He has proudly shown this to visitors to our house, as well as talked with the neighbors and school personnel as his pet fish.  "They don't move, though," he concedes.

My sweet little boy.