<human>: My SO and I have wanted a dog for a long time and are starting to seriously consider adopting a puppy. He had a dog as a young child but otherwise neither of us have been dog owners before. We feel that we are both ready for the responsibility and financial commitment and we have done a lot of research to make sure we know what we're getting ourselves into.

We live in a (dog-friendly) apartment and both work full-time, but are planning to alternate coming home for lunch twice a week each and using daycare once a week while our pup is young. We both work 15-20 min from home. Eventually we'd like to ease away from coming home during the day and let our dog stay in the apartment while we're at work.

Questions:

1. For those of you who have tried to come home from work for lunch, any advice on making it easier for you and pup? How bad is it to miss a day?

2. At what age did you STOP coming home everyday?

3. Is it cruel to leave a dog (older than puppy) home alone all day while you work? We're both in careers that will probably always be full-time and I don't want that to mean we can never have a dog without an everyday dog walker or lunch breaks, but I also don't want to be selfish.

4. How can we know if it's the right time to adopt a puppy? We are relatively young but extremely excited to take care of a dog and willing to make sacrifices. I'm just not sure what kind of situation we should be in before adopting to make sure the dog has the best life possible.

Can you provide a brief overview of the text?
<bot>: How do we know if we're ready for a puppy and how can we best manage it as two full-time workers?