Clifford the Big Red Dog and REAL Dogs

Our local libraries hosted a Love of Reading Week (in mid-November) where the kids met Clifford and each got a new book to keep. They also got to meet the library "reading" dogs who have been in the paper a number of times. These two dogs visit the libraries off and on, and kids get a chance to read to them. My kids and I spent a lot of time petting them, wishing we could have one of our own. But, alas, Steven's allergies are quite bad around any dogs we've held, thinking we might just get one of our own. Now the kids are asking for things like lizards, snakes...