Confessions of a dog magnet

Let me begin by stating that I have never owned a dog. My parents had chickens and rabbits. Nowadays, we have two cats.
But for reasons I cannot explain, I am a dog magnet. Such was the case on Saturday morning again when we went to Sewickley Heights park to see some birds. This is a park where dogs run lose and I can't even get out of the car before the first dog comes over to greet me. Later on the trail two beautiful dogs approached from the other side. One of them ran right past my husband to me. It was a beautiful retriever and I was astonished to learn that it was a five-months old puppy. It was big enough to be adult. Since I can't even lift our chubby cat out of the car I consider everything over 10 pounds heavy.
Speaking of cats: Our "Chubby" has recovered from teeth surgery like a trooper. She has lost a bit of weight but not as much as we would like. The downside of her diet is, of course, that she wakes us up early on weekends because she wants to be fed. So, perhaps I should feed her a late night snack if we want to sleep in...