Dog woes

Alright friends, I'm going to try to work this dilemma out before unburdening myself on my tired husband. To get to the point, this is the sob story about me n' our dog. "Our dog." I wish I could claim no responsibility for him, but that can't be the case. So here is the deal. My gut feeling is that we need to not own this dog anymore. He is a 3 year old, German Shepherd and black Lab mix, weighs about 90 pounds and has more energy than the atomic bomb.

Now, because I am trying to gather my addled and emotion-ridden wits together and prepare a cogent argument for Josh, rather than simply crying and screaming that either the dog or I are going, let's do this methodically. Why do people, most people, own dogs? Simple. For companionship, protection, or work. Most people keep dogs as companions. A companion dog, I imagine, implies that it spends time with you and you with it. You may even like the dog. I would assume that the dog would like you. So "time" is essential if the dog is a companion. Next, you have dogs for protection. Most dogs today function as an alarm and a deterrent. A thief in your backyard might think twice if you have a reasonably sized, barking dog making its presence known. I think it safe to assume that most people do not expect to keep dogs that would actually be capable of killing the said thief. So bigger isn't necessarily better. I don't know anyone who keeps a dog for work purposes, but I've seen enough Scottish movies to guess that in some places in the world, dogs herd sheep and other such critters.

Our dog falls under the category of protection. He isn't a companion sort of dog. He is too big, too strong, and too rough to do anything with. Literally, we do nothing with this creature except feed him. Josh pets him, maybe and lets him run around. But that's it. I'm not strong enough to handle him. I can just see it... me, my stroller, my pregnant belly and that asinine dog traipsing down the street. Not going to happen. However, he is a good watch dog, to his credit. Our house in Michigan was never robbed because of him. Two weeks after we left, the new tenants had their electronics stolen. He's a scary dog, I will say that for him.

Today the dog got out under our fence and tangled himself in our neighbor's fence. Our neighbor came over to tell me and I had to leave Greta, and untangle this stupid beast. He, of course, is not sitting politely and waiting. Oh no, he is running circles around me, jumping, pulling and tangling me. I can't even bend over easily to pick up a fork of the floor. Imagine trying to extricate a greased pig of a dog with a 7 month large belly in the way? Oh, it was a sight. By the time I was done and the beast was returned to his prison, I was ready to kill something. My husband came first to mind. We still have this dog due to his insistence that we need a guard dog.

So here's my fun predicament. How do I convince my husband that we do not need this dog, that it is unsafe for me to be handling this dog, and that a smaller, obedient, normal dog would do just as well, maybe even better for our family? If we had 100 acres, that is one thing. If we still lived near Detroit, that is another. If I wasn't always going to be relatively pregnant and carrying kids around, that might be another story. If Josh actually wanted to do things with this dog, that's yet another. However, none of these criteria are going to happen in the near future. So what's a nice way to tell Josh we need a different dog or no dog at all for awhile? Help, folks!