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Along with the four kids our combined family also came bundled with two canine additions: a brilliantly high-strung Border Collie, Meg, and a dumber than a doorstop Siberian Husky, Maya.

While Meg has her own assortment of doggie quirks (number one of which is her singular devotion to Nicole to the extent that she will pine miserably by the front door until her raison d'être returns), the many annoyances of Maya are much more difficult to catalog.

We could talk about the "husky tumble weeds" that drift freely about the house requiring us to strap on a vacuum cleaner like the Ghostbusters and chase down the offending hairballs, or perhaps the way she sleeps on her back until roused by a convulsive burst of gagging snorts followed by a long series of sneezes.

But by far her single biggest doggie quirk is the fact that she's not much of a dog at all. She doesn't come when you call her, has not an ounce of loyalty and is driven solely by self-interest; basically, she's a large, dumb cat. She is not a member of the family sharing our home. She is a ward of the state imprisoned within our house.

Given the choice, she'd run wild without a backwards glance. She plots constantly for her escape and has succeeded on multiple occasions. We've met more neighbors through prisoner exchange then we have from the PTA and block parties combined.

Unfortunately Maya comes equipped with both the old school dog tags and a sub-dermal GPS tracker that both direct the little convict back to our front door.

During one such prison break she was taken in by a nice family of dog lovers, including one little girl who was hoping and praying that Maya's owners would never find her. How many times since then have I regretted picking her up or thought about going back to make a little girl's dreams come true.

I thought about it when Maya peed all over the entryway the morning I was rushing out the door for a business trip. I thought about it when Maya started treating bathroom garbage cans as her own person smorgasbord. I thought about it when Maya got sick repeatedly all over the house, 90 percent of which landed predictably on carpet.

Now this last one brings us to the other joy that is Maya - the expense.

Being a husky she is already predisposed to have certain joint conditions, specifically in her hips, that require some additional expenses: supplements, medicine, therapeutic beds, a doggie walker with little tennis balls on the feet - you get the idea.

And I get it, too. I'm a dog lover, and dogs can be an important part of the family. But an animal that runs past your outstretched arms choosing the open road over your loving embrace does not embody the spirit of Ohana. I start to ask myself, "How much money do I want to invest in an apathetic animal?"

This was the dilemma when Maya started to have difficulty standing, then walking, and then the next day became a fountain of bile. Luckily our local vet is gracious enough to be open on Sundays so the first thing in the morning we brought Maya in for a checkup, knowing full well the potential money pit we were leaping into. Our worse fears were confirmed on both fronts, and after a $1000 visit, the radiologist suspected a possible tumor in the stomach and throughout the intestines.

Now, I wouldn't be telling this story if it actually ended that horribly. I may not be organizing a Maya fan club, but I'm not completely heartless. Penniless perhaps, but not heartless.

So when the vet suggested we follow up with an ultrasound, we reluctantly agreed. I figured that since the diagnosis had no real treatment options, we at least owed it to her to get solid confirmation of her condition. In my mind, though, it was merely a formality.

For a fleeting moment my mind danced with the freedom of having a single dog. A loyal dog. An intelligent dog. Not a chain-sneezing flight risk. It was a world free of fur drifts, free of unpleasant surprises. It was a beautiful, peaceful, allergy-friendly world. And then it was gone.

After a $500 appointment with the ultrasound the very same tech that had, only the day before, condemned our overgrown furball to imminent doom gracefully back pedaled with a new theory that maybe it was just something she ate, like a lump of clay or an extra helping of toilet paper. The governor's pardon on her supposed death sentence. The convict was coming home.

And now every time I see one of those husky tumbleweeds I can't help but see little money signs - money signs drifting off her body with every step, money signs bursting off her body with every sneeze, money signs littered down the hallway with the shredded tissue paper. Every annoyance that is Maya is now decorated with sad little money signs.

Is it too late to make a little girl's dreams come true?

- Robert Hoffman

Robert Hoffman delights in being a struggling writer and artist. He's illustrated the children's book A Different Kind of Day, and worked as staff cartoonist at the Sacramento State Hornet. When he's not struggling creatively, he works as a code monkey specializing in educational software and working with such fancy clients as Disney and Nickelodeon. Robert lives in Rocklin, Calif., with his fiancé and their Brady-sized family.