Back in college I was sitting in a pub with a pack of friends 'n' acquaintances when some wag announced she could tell who was a dog person and who was a cat person (no, this had nothing to do with furries). I don't remember her overall success rate, but when she got to me she stared for a second and then said, "Fish person."

Of course I protested - I grew up with English Springer Spaniels, I'm godmother to a Golden Retriever in Connecticut, and the right dog will have me rolling around on the floor and spewing baby talk like an idiot. But I conceded that I don't like most little dogs, or high-strung, over-bred dogs of any size. I also don't assume that everyone who is out with a puppy wants strangers to accost his or her pet, so I'll usually suppress the urge to play unless I know the owner. And since I've been a dogless apartment dweller for years now, I'm rarely seen cavorting with canines.

All of this comes to mind because as I was walking to work this morning, I saw a chocolate Lab puppy, and I couldn't take my eyes off it. This was in front of a hotel, and the owners were busy unloading their car. The Lab was looking up at me, trying to follow along and getting all tangled up in its leash, which was looped around a parking meter. If I hadn't kept walking I wouldn't have been able to resist dropping to my knees and kissing its fuzzy little face.

That's when I realized that the bigger the breed, the more likely I am to go gaga over the puppy, and I figured out that it must have something to do with the big ol' feet on those little tiny bodies, the telltale sign that this creature, with those big eyes and that little pink tongue and ungainly gait will grow to be something much more than it is now, that its current state of vulnerability is only temporary, and as a temporary state much more precious. Seeing the dog-to-be in a puppy, or the puppy-that-was in a dog makes me all melty every time.

If that's too sweet for you, take heart in the sociobiological theory that we're wired to have warm responses to cute things, "cute" being defined as possessing disproportionately large eyes: puppies, babies, E.T., Jake Gyllenhaal, anime, squid.

Okay, maybe not squid.