He has seen me pining. Pining for my sister's dogs, pining for my friends' dogs and desperately waiting. I made a concerted effort not to push the issue. A dog is a big commitment and I never wanted it to be a source of resentment. I had resigned myself to the fact that a dog was going to have to wait until at the very least all young things could feed and dress themselves. And then he sprung it on me...
Kevin told me that he had been looking at a dog for me, but he didn't want to make the decision without consulting me. I nearly jumped out of my skin as much as a mom can without raising the hopes and expectations of her children.
But...
We decide we wanted to welcome a rescue dog into our home and quite frankly as the process went on I began to believe that im it very well have to trade my firstborn in order to convince anyone to let us love a dog. We looked at and inquired about four dogs.
Dog 1: Despite a bio that said she was good with kids, we were denied because she was too skittish for kids. ???
Dog 2: We called, we drove 4 hours round trip to visit, we loved on him and filled out an application. I called to thank the shelter. I called to follow up on the application. I never received any further information even after being promised a call later that afternoon. I found out through a Facebook post that he had been adopted...???
Dog 3: Loved him, inquired, applied, talked with a lovely rescue worker and waited for a call from the foster mom. Got an email stating that foster mom was keeping him. After a year of fostering him, our interest sparked her desire to finally adopt him???
Dog 4: Perfect. Small, young, but not a puppy. Good breed. Good with kids and cats. Our applucation was the best fit. We set up the perfect time to visit on our way through town as she was being fostered 2 hours from our home. We got there and she hid in the corner. I picked her up to love on her and she quivered. She shook every time our kids walked up. The foster dad tells the kids to be careful because he doesn't want her to bite their faces. ??? Then he tells us that her spay incontinence is under control, but she doesn't ride well in the car - poos, pees, and pukes in the car. ???
Dog 5: We almost didn't visit him. He was bigger than we wanted. We had just set up the visit with Dog 4 and were to,d we would need to make a decision quickly because there were other applications behind us. Having already applied to meet Dog 5 who was being fostered in the same city as Dog 4 we wanted to meet them both, but we were waiting on application approval before we could be put in touch with his foster mom. I sent a Hail Mary email and prayer asking if there was any chance that during the rescues holiday shutdown that we could even meet Peanut. The night before we were to be travelling we got the call. His foster mom spent 30 minutes telling me all about him and agreed that we could meet him the next day on our way through! Kevin's response, "You still want to meet him?"
My response, "We might as well."
We met him after the fateful first meeting of Dog 4. We were disheartened and disillusioned. We pulled up the foster's home in a neighborhood that looked suspiciously Like our old neighborhood. We were welcomed with open arms in their home and their lives. Peanut was energetic and immediately took to me. He showed off his tricks and his love of television and food. We now understood why he was overweight. The family that surrendered him had fed him primarily people food - white bread and sausage sandwiches were he favorites.??? He was well trained, but had been surrendered because his family had gotten a puppy. ??? He had already lost some weight but needed to lose more.
Not five minutes in, I mouthed to Kevin, "He is it!" Our rescue had a 5 day foster period to make sure the dog is a good fit. I wanted to take him with us that day! I didn't want to leave him! However, we were on our way to my parents house for the weekend and didn't want to confuse him. We agreed to pick him up on Sunday.
Sunday was a miserable cold and snowy day. Instead of a nice visit, we picked him up in a flash, but he jumped right in and settled down. And the rest is history.
Peanut is an amazing dog. Loving, friendly, communicates well, and such a sweet companion. He is a six-year-old pointer/terrier/border collie mix. He is house-trained and despite the bitter cold and snow has not had a single accident. He is a land shark and will do anything for food. He stole cucumbers off my salad one day and then stole a bunch of bananas off the counter and proceeded to eat half of one, peel and all. It's a learning curve, but we are managing!
Already I can't imagine life without him. We are a dog family now and Mr. Nutsy makes us better than we were before. We can't wait to enjoy him outdoors as the weather improves!
And as per the theme of our family, we almost missed out on him. But God knew...
Stay awake for a lifetime of the unexpected!
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