I grew up with a dog named Rex. He was a chubby, flop-eared, brown and black German Shepherd, and my brother never let me forget it wasn’t my dog. He was right, of course, because when given a choice, Rex would always run to my brother, and not me. Dogs can be cruel like that.

It was in those early years of Rex’s indifference to me that I grew an indifference to dogs. Sure, they’re great to pet and play with but in the end, I began to look at them more as a chore. I concluded that I was just a cat person.

Cats are easy. You can put down a bucket of food, a gallon of water, and a fresh box of poo-poo-pebbles and head to Europe for a week. When you get back, the food and water will have been transferred to the box, and the cat will eventually come and say hello. Simple. In the same scenario, the dog will have eaten the food, drank the water, eaten your couch and throw pillows, pooped in a mathematically impossible grid across the entire house, and anxiety shed enough to start a brand-new dog.

Recently, when Dudley, our puggle of 12 years passed, I put my foot down and said, “never again.” We had two black cats and were just fine without a dog. After all, I was the king of this castle, right? I was the captain of this starship, and I simply wasn’t going to bring another big responsibility into our lives. The food, the doctor’s bills, the money, and the “what do we do when we are leaving for a week” conversations just didn’t need to happen.

As I sit at my desk and computer tonight, long after midnight with all of the Birds snugly in their nests, I look up to see two jet black eyes staring back at me. Drool is coming heavily from a long snout filled with a tennis ball between her teeth. I take off my glasses and rub my face. Good to be the king? I think I’ve been overthrown.