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Some dogs don't seem to like anybody. These are usually your very small dogs, the kind that have to be transported in special dog-holding purses, because if they were ever to be set down on the ground they would be carried off by spiders. They need constant attention from their owners, and they can be very annoying. I refer here to the owners. The dogs are even worse, always yapping and growling, as if they're some kind of badass carnivore of the animal kingdom, instead of basically a paramecium with fur.

— Lessons From Lucy by Dave Barry (Page 31)

The way you send your DNA to 23andMe is frankly disgusting: you drool into a test tube. Really. The tube has a line on the side, and you're supposed to drool into it until your saliva reaches that level. I was not aware that drool contains DNA, but apparently it does. Either that, or this is an elaborate ruse by the people at 23andMe, who actually obtain your DNA from your fingerprints on the test tube, and for some sick reason are collecting a vast supply of human saliva. Maybe they use it to fill a decorative fountain at the 23andMe headquarters. Or maybe they have some kind of bizarre ritual wherein they immerse their naked bodies in vats of drool. I don't know, and I frankly refuse to engage in unfounded speculation about the perverts running 23andMe.

— Lessons From Lucy by Dave Barry (Page 27 - 28)

When we brought Lucy home she quickly adapted, as dogs do, to her new environment, except for one element: photo albums. We have a lot of albums; Michelle usually makes one after we take a vacation. I don't know why they and Lucy could not coexist peacefully. Perhaps tens of thousands of years ago, Lucy's ancestors were attacked by primitive photo albums, which in those days were much larger and more aggressive than the ones we have today. Whatever happened, Lucy had not forgotten it, and on several occasions during her first few months with us we came home to find an album from one of our family trips chewed into small pieces, leaving little shredded fragments of our happy decapitated vacation faces smiling up from all over the floor.

— Lessons From Lucy by Dave Barry (Page 12 - 13)

So I was a dog lover from the start. Our next family dog after Mistral was Herbie, who was a mixed breed, a cross between a German shepherd and an aircraft carrier. He was huge. Fortunately he was also very affectionate, although sometimes his rambunctiousness intimidated visitors who didn't know that he was harmless.

"Herbie!" we would shout. "Put the UPS man down RIGHT NOW!"

And usually he would. Good boy!

— Lessons From Lucy by Dave Barry (Page 4)