The Politics of Dogs

Up until just recently, my position on pets was not hard to figure out. I've had one pet in my adulthood, and my dog Jack was my personal assistant for twelve years. After he died, I publicly announced that I didn't have the time to ignore another pet. Unfortunately, none of my children were old enough at the time to read my public announcements.
As it turns out, my kids are no different from any other kids. Well, maybe a little. But when it comes to pets, they made the same incessant pleas for a puppy as all the other kids their age. In the wake of Jack's passing, I confronted their pleadings head-on and forthrightly.
"Kids, we can't have a pet," I told them soberly.
"Why not?," they whined like professionals.
I paused for effect, and chose my words carefully. "Well, you see, your mother is deathly allergic to all types of animals. If we got a pet, she'd have to go into a sanitarium and take fifteen shots a day for a whole year. And she couldn't cook for us."
That excuse worked for a while. At least up until Lydia found out that they cheered the no cooking part. After that, it was harder and harder to come up with legitimate excuses for not having a pet. And then last month, I hit the pet request wall. I ran completely out of bizarre reasons not to have a pet.
That fact, combined with an innocent trip to the Humane Society, painted me into a pet corner. So we went down to the pound and got a puppy. Almost immediately, I entered the surreal world of Pet Politics.
It's not exactly a voting type of thing. And nobody runs for dogcatcher. Instead, it's more of a gender politics thing. In other words, my daughters insisted on naming our new dog. "Let's call him Fefe," Callie shouted.
"You canâ