At what point...?

Pip chewing a bully stick

Pip is now over seven months old, and I've lived with her for more than four and a half months. At what point will I be able to look at her without melting? In the old Star Trek TV series, whenever Joan Collins or another of Captain Kirk's love interests appeared, she'd be filmed with a camera lens smeared with Vaseline, apparently an old film technique to mimic the way people's pupils dilate when looking at a love object, a baby, or something else seen as adorable, softening our focus. I know that happens to me every time I look at this adorable dog. Her prancing on heel in obedience school, her eager look when I ask if she wants to go birding, her snuggling when I need an afternoon nap, her sleepy greeting when I wake up in the morning and her curling up on her bed on the floor next to me when I climb into bed for the night, her contagious joie de vivre—will I ever be able to take anything about her for granted? So far, that doesn't seem likely.