It Must Be Puppy Love
Remember the potentially exciting news I teased about?
Remember last Thursday? I'd had a particularly difficult day at work. Frustrating more than difficult really. But there were tears...and I blame that more on the fact that I had not been sleeping well AND my house vaguely smelled of sewer.
After work I decided to check out the Operation Kindness website. I've been preparing Rob for the addition of a new four legged family member but with the promise that I wouldn't necessarily go searching for one. But if the right one was brought to my attention, we would get it and it might be next week or it might be December but it was definitely happening this year.
So I decided to just do some window shopping if you will, and to get signed up so I could be pre-approved. But to do that I had to look at the dogs first.
Now maybe my mistake was in searching only puppies. If I had looked at the adult dogs there wouldn't have been danger of finding one as he specified a puppy to give the cats a better chance of accepting it. And who am I to argue about getting a puppy?
My initial search for puppies was females only because that is what I am used to.
There were only 4 female puppies available. Puppy number 1 was cute but was obviously going to grow up to be a beast (she was all legs). Puppy number 2 was cute AND her name is Clementine and I was almost ready to adopt just based on the name.
Puppy number 3 was Sky and I literally burst into tears when I saw her.
The first thing you should know is that when I adopted Spike from OPK 18 years ago, his name at the shelter was Sky. The second thing you should know is Trixie looked a lot like that puppy when we got her.
I couldn't help but feel it was a sign....as hokey as that may seem. It felt as though both Spike and Trixie were giving me their blessing and showing me this was my dog. I think Rob may have thought I was a little crazy - and he may not be wrong, but I just KNEW she was meant for me.
Unfortunately due to the pandemic OPK is not currently open to the public and you have to make appointments for adoption. And the next available tele-appointment they had was 3:00 on March 11th.
I took the appointment and then sent a heartfelt email explaining why that was my dog and asked if there was any way I could adopt her sooner.
Basically the response was no skipsies. They also couldn't hold a dog. But sometimes appointments get cancelled and I should check back.
So I did. I checked back a lot. And yesterday morning I woke up and there was an appointment available for 10am today!
Sadly (but also yay for her), Sky had already found her forever home.
We decided to keep the 10am appointment and opened our search to male puppies. We put a few on our list - including one of Sky's litter mates. This time I tried not to get too attached.
Then I woke up to the Facebook memory that 11 years ago today we rescued Trixie. And come on. That HAS to be a sign. Right?
BTW I did not set out searching for a dog just like Trixie. In fact,I specifically didn't want a dog just like her. Just like I specifically didn't want a black cat when I got Spike.
The universe gives us what we need, not necessarily what we want.
So we had our interview and we adopted Spencer! He's Sky's litter mate. They appear to be retriever but since we are getting her from a shelter we don't really know for sure. We will be getting a DNA test done at some point just so we can be prepared for what he is going to grow up to be.
I am writing this before we pick him up today at 3:00. I cannot wait - I'm very excited about it!
Of course Rob is very nervous about how the cats will react...I am too. I know it can be tricky. But as the two cats literally are galloping around the house chasing each other right now, I am hopeful they will let their little brother play with them.
I think the thing we are most concerned about is preventing him from eating the cat food. Our cats are free feeders...we will have to figure that out. Anyone have any tips? I don't know if putting their food on a counter is a viable option as they are actually very good about not jumping on counter tops and I am reluctant to change that. It's rare to have cats that don't jump on counter tops.
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O. M. GEE
We just got back from picking him up and spending a ton of money on him. He looks much more like Trixie than expected - same white paws and the tip of her tail.
I'm already in love.
#stilllucky #infinitelybetter #operationkindness #puppypower #wegotadog