i second EVERYTHING you wrote down.
i have a 2-year old boy golden retriever and as you may already know, he sheds like a mother.
he's caused me some aggravation, (also things get kinda inconvenient at times when you just want to sleep in and he's jumping on all fours crying to pee or duringthose COLD NYC winter weathers....and when he prevents me from staying out or going on vacation but he's seriously become my family, even more so, my son.
seriously, i've had to deal with a lot of neighbors who bitched about my dog going wee wee on their trees but i tell them, FRIGGIN get over it! this is NYC and even if it wasn't my dog, some other dogs and other animals would come around and pee on your property anyway. we always clean up after poo....some people don't, and that's my biggest pet peeve.
thanks for posting this, juneplum!