To dog or not to dog, that is the question!

Part 1: Ok, so it is like this-the first pic is of my oldest son (who is now almost 4) with our first dog! I know she was a beautiful dog, we named her Skyler! The problem is that we were told she was a purebred lab (I know we were blinded by puppy cuteness). Turns out she was part German Shorthair, and if you know anything about this breed you will know that they are very high strung! Long story short, she destroyed many things, NOT GOOD, and we had to get rid of her! The good new is that she was adopted within one day! Yea!!!!! (We really did love her though!)
Part 2: So you are probably wondering who this is?! Again it is my oldest son (who is almost 4 now) with puppy #2! Out of the goodness of our hearts we decided that since we had to give up Skylar for adoption, we should adopt a puppy to give it a home!! Great idea,huh!! Ok maybe not!! This is Patch!! Very cute!! We liked him, he was very sweet!! He had a nasty barking habit and was frequently let out of his kennel by our neighbors!! Not good! Long story short, he was let out my someone by accident (not a neighbor) and he ran away!!! So, there goes Patch!! He was picked up but to get him out it was going to cot 3x more than what we paid to adopt him!!! So this might sound harsh, but we had to leave him!!:( Good news is, he also was readopted!

So to my point!!! My oldest son's b'day is coming and guess what he wants!? Yep, that's right-a puppy! It has been 3 years and we have somewhat enjoyed not being tied down, if you will. Although I do like dogs, I probably would be ok if I did not have one! The flip side is, I remember saying as a kid "I'm glad those aren't my parents, I would hate not having a dog!" I don't want to be "one of those parents", and I loved having a dog as a kid, and am grateful my parents allowed us to have one(despite the fact that my dad was not an animal lover:0)! So, you see my predicament!!! What to do, what to do!!! hmmm? (on a side note there will be much research into the right breed for our fam along with training-I believe this is very important-that is if we go through with it:o)