Adding a pinch of spice to a peaceful marriage

At some point soon after I moved to the ranch, my husband kindly requested that we place a four-animal cap on indoor pets. At that time we had my two elderly house dogs and two wild, young house cats, which I agreed was plenty. Within the first two years, however, the older of my dogs died, and I began joking about the opening in the indoor animal quota. It really was just a joke--we’d recently…