Our old dog - a black lab - died recently and whilst we are definitely not ready for a new dog yet, I've begun to think about it. I can't really imagine family life without a dog but to my surprise, DH is hesitant.
He was really the main carer for the dog. I work part-time but am out of the house a lot on top of that, mostly with kids activities, etc, whereas he works full-time but works from home and is very flexible, so long dog walks in the day are feasible. When we got our old dog, he was finishing his PhD and hugely flexible and spent 2-3 hours every day socialising and training the dog. DDog was amazing and easy and lovely and DH thinks it was partly because he had this time - and I think he's probably right about that. Now, although he is flexible, there is so much going that that amount of time every day would be a real stretch. We would probably need to rely on a dog walkers at least a couple of days a week once the dog is old enough. DDog had got a bit old and lazy before he died and didn't want so much exercise, which fitted in quite well with our current lifestyle - I don't see that we could give a new puppy the same amount of time our old dog had as a puppy, although he wouldn't be left alone much and would get at least an hour a day walks.
Would we be unreasonable to get a new dog under the circumstances? Would it be better to get an older rescue dog rather than a puppy? I am a bit nervous about that because we really need a dog that is dependable around sheep, so would feel more confident if we get a breed I know is trainable for this and then train it properly.
Any advice would be great!