finale!

do you like how i'm dragging out my story over multiple days? is the suspense eating away at you?

so while we were at animal control on sunday morning, we wandered around and looked at all the kitties and doggies hanging out in their respective pens. some gave me googly eyes, some talked at me, and others were on their best behavior. i scanned through a lot of their paperwork and was shocked and saddened at the number of animals who were left there by their previous owners. i just can't imagine having to go through that process and how difficult that must be for the dogs too.

bfff & i walked through separately and one puppy caught our eye. her name was shelby and she's a shepherd mix. mostly black with brown toe nails and gigantic ears. when the ears are up, she looks like a little bat. but most of the time, it looks like there is a serious gust of wind:


here's shelby's story: she's 5 months old and was originally adopted from animal control (but i don't know how old she was at the time). her paperwork stayed that she was pretty gentle and walks well on a leash. she apparently gets very carsick too. the family that adopted her brought her back to the shelter due to the mom having some kind of major surgery, and therefore they couldn't handle her anymore. a second family adopted shelby, but brought her back in a week because they wanted a puppy, but didn't want the work involved in raising one.

bfff and i talked about adopting her, taking a number of things into consideration. first, would her & vito get along? would they be good companions? could we handle two dogs? would we be willing to put in the time for training and care? could we afford the cost of two dogs, vet bills, food, etc? who would watch them if we went on vacation? what happens if we move? would we be able to handle the stress on our relationship? what are some worst case scenarios? and the list continues....

we slept on it and talked some more in the morning. we made our decision, contingent on how the meeting went between her and vito...she's going to be part of our family! so, we went back to animal control the next morning, as soon as it opened, hoping no one had adopted her before us. we brought vito for the big meet and when they saw each other, they wriggled their butts, tails wagging, dropping into a play bow, and hopped from side to side. vito met his new bff.

we renamed her because, to me, she didn't look like a shelby. plus she didn't know her name anyway. since bfff picked out vito's name and collar, it was my turn. her name is mia (meee-ya) and her collar is blue (of course).

so here's a couple of pictures from these first few days:

mia making herself at home

mia & vito staying still for 2 seconds

hanging out puppies!

oh, and yes, in case you are wondering, we are crazy. crazy people with big hearts & a major soft spot for dogs.