How do people do it?

As per usual, I was harassing M. about getting a dog. This happens on a fairly regular basis -- twice a day, give or take. We were going back and forth until finally i turned things up a notch and demanded that we have a "serious conversation" even though we kinda already were. for some reason, i feel a conversation cannot be serious unless i point out that it is, in fact, serious. this makes it official.

anyways, i wanted to get to the bottom of it - why couldn't we really have a dog?

question: What would we do with the dog if we went away for the weekend or longer?
response: Have our friend Jon stay at our place or have the dog go to him.
problem solved.

question: we're not allowed to have dogs in our building
response: we may be able to get frank to bend on this.
problem (almost) solved.

question: can we afford a dog?
response: one can not put a price on love.
problem solved.

question: can we leave a dog alone from 8am - 8pm?
response: no. even with wee pads that's a LONG time to leave a dog alone, 5 days a week.
PROBLEM! PROBLEM! PROBLEM!

I am opening this up to discussion. How do people, who work full time, own dogs? Seriously, help.