Excluding death camps and other instruments of torture, you could argue that every happening, every situation, has some element of both advantage and disadvantage. Millions, perhaps billions, of people who have acquired a 10 week old pup know the truth of this maxim. Within 30 seconds of ownership, you come face to face with the concept of unconditional love. You experience the joy of instinctive intelligence that allows certain breeds to retrieve. You gain satisfaction of teaching a willing pupil, of seeing him learn and remember more quickly in two days than some humans can in a lifetime. When it’s time to play, the teaching continues and the fun begins. When it’s time to exercise, your little athlete knows only one speed — full bore. Everywhere you go, he lights up doting eyes and big smiles, loving hugs and cuddles. And the sweet talk. He is perfect. You agree he’s a bright star, but perfection may be a stretch. Happiness for a lab pup is destroying anything and everything. That includes fingers, toes, apparel, upholstery, electric cords, houseplants, chair legs, eyeglasses, door handles, TV remotes and a flat screen — if he could reach it. Naturally, you can’t expect an energetic animal to always sit quietly as you attempt to work, cook and clean. It’s not his fault that he’s cooped up in your house. For that reason you take him out every 30 minutes to roam a half acre of natural areas and ivy, to allow him ample opportunity to do his personal business. Forty five minutes later, he’s back inside and promptly and strategically pees in three separate locations. Sometimes, he may decide to deposit poop in his secret recesses. Collecting a diarrhea-like morsel has little redeeming value for normal people. In time, you began thinking of renaming your pup Ass Wipe. But you thought better of it, imagining how embarrassed he would feel at AKC festivities among the more intellectual breeds, canine and human. You have to admit that wiping up and disinfecting a pee place is clearly something of a disadvantage. You must find a way to limit this activity to under six times daily. There’s no cause either,  to be irritated with 2 AM trips outside, sometimes in the rain, for bladder relief. Plenty of adults have that problem. The most pervasive downside to living alone with a puppy — and you feel a bit guilty saying it — is that the little bastard is never satisfied. If he’s not asleep, there’s not a second he doesn’t demand your attention, or that he threatens you with untrammeled bodily function. This criticism is also a little unfair because all your companion wants is to be near you at all times. This is his expression of love and devotion — an emotion you sense as you trip over him in the hallway and fall flat on your ass. All in all, the advantages must outweigh the disadvantages. Being housebound, serving as 24-7 custodian, making waste elimination the centerpiece of your existence, giving up athletic pursuits and foregoing your own hygiene and nutrition — these deprivations are trivial in comparison to the outpouring of true love that enriches you in a myriad of inexpressible ways. At least that’s what you read in a book somewhere.