One thing to remember is that dogs retire too. As they get older they get easier to handle until they sort of tire out.

There's a lot of dogs out there who need someones love, and kibble. My wife and I say "the dog finds you, be patiet", but bring him home when he appears. People give me dogs and I keep some and give some away in turn. Right now I have a huge mean pitbull NOT, thats scared of her own shadow and lets her 5 pound chijuajua little sister push her around.

A 5 pound dog thats a couple years old is easy to pick up and put on your lap and loves to be wrapped inside your robe on a cold morning while I drink my coffee. HOWEVER I had to install hundreds of feet of new smaller hole fence along the bottom of my old 8 foot fence, because the 5 pound dog can run through field wire, AND the vet told me that a hawk or eagle or owl could get her outside, so the dog yard was cut to about 50 by 60 feet from 1/2 acre and has 3,000 feet of bird net over it like a fish hatchery.

ANyway I kinda think that as one dog gets a few years you get another, like every 2-3 years add another dog...

Chickens and rabbits are hobby animals, not effective food producers, they will take up your time, either keeping you busy or keeping you from other things. Most plants and animals are things that you "husband" simply because you love to. I'm a farmer and I never get to leave even for a night except to go camping locally overnight. Fortunately I can sit on my deck with my dogs with an awesome view and the next neighbor to the west is 85 miles away in Eugene. And speaking of retirement, its nice to have a place like this where the only thing we hear is the phone, the wind, birds, dogs and an occasional car. Not only is it spooky quiet, its dark. Theres a county ordinance about light pollution of the sky and NO street lights...
Jim