What’s Dogging Your Portfolio?

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What’s Dogging Your Portfolio?

By Mariko Gordon

March 18, 2014

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Last time I had a dog (a German shepherd), I was 10.

The last time my husband had a dog (a Springer spaniel), he was in college and, unbeknownst to him, it was given away by his mother.

And so when we decided to adopt a pit bull named Bo last month (pictured at right), we had no idea what we were getting into.

It all started with a dinner invitation to our friend, Tania. Before coming over that night, she asked a small favor: Would we house an abandoned dog until the doggie rescue network checked him out to see if he was adoptable? He was found by Riverside Park groundskeepers, chained to a gate and curled up in a doggie-made igloo, mangy, emaciated, and close to freezing to death.

We said, “sure,” Bo arrived for dinner, and before long we became accidental dog owners.

Though he may look like a brute, he is sweet-tempered and lovable – provided you’re not a squirrel, raccoon or one of the neighbor’s Prince Charles spaniels, that is.

So our lives are now turned upside down.

We fret over walking schedules, feeding schedules, and who gets stuck with scooping up dog doo. There’s the lack of sleep due to loud ear-flapping caused by ear mites. The occasional kitchen floor “accident” that needs tending to. And, of course, there are the constant requests to play fetch.

I’m sure pocket poodles also have their moments, but let’s face it, a young seventy-five pound pit bull is high maintenance.

Thinking about this made me realize that sometimes stocks make their way into our portfolio with Bo-like parallels: They arrive in the portfolio innocently enough and yet ultimately prove to be a handful.

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