Some things aren't meant to last forever. We have been dogless for 90 days. In that amount of time I have cried. I have been down. I have called the dogs to go out for their "last call" of the evening only to wind up laughing at myself because there aren't dogs in the house. My husband has patted his chair, his way of calling the dog up into his chair. Of course, his lap remains empty.
We have read craiglist, ebay classified, our local paper. We have been to pet stores. We comment on every dog we see. We walk around the neighborhood saying "They have a dog." in a completely dejected voice. We have thought of the next dog. We have considered breed, gender, size, names and when to adopt. Since our house is on the market in preparation to move 1,500 miles, we have decided it best to wait to adopt a new dog until we move.
But, it's been 90 lonely days. Oh, and child #1 came home from college. That re-energized the feeling of missing having a dog.
On Sunday, my husband flipped the t.v. to some channel that was hosted by the local humane society. They were showing all the pets up for adoption. My 5 year had tears streaming down his adorable little cheeks. I'm pretty sure my 19 year old was drooling. Next thing I know, we are in the car (after a phone call) to drive an hour and a half to pick up some mix breed, female dog that will grow to be bigger than the plan. Let's not even mention that WE HAVE NOT MOVED YET!
To recap; the plan was to wait until we moved. My plan also included getting a dog that as an adult would weigh under 30 pounds. It would be a male dog named "Barney".
What did we get? A female dog that was listed as a Saint Bernard/Shepherd mix. I am a pushover. A sucker. (You know, one is born every minute.)
Before I panicked too much over how HUGE and HAIRY this dog was going to be, we saw both parents. I am not sure how they came up with Saint Bernard and Shepherd. What I saw in front of me was two medium sized, mixed breed dogs. I also saw three delighted children. (child #3 is NOT into animals, she was just along for the ride).
Our new puppy is some random mixed breed. I wanted to name her "Heinz" (as in 57 varieties)as a reminder of her roots...both breed wise and that we live in Pittsburgh and Heinz is a Pittsburgh brand.
Trying to name a puppy is always a bit of a challenge. When you consider the fact that this was a spur of the moment (STUPID) decision, and that we had 6 people in the car trying to agree, the name choice took 36 hours. Finally I picked what name child #4 and I liked best. After all, we are the people who will ultimately spend the most time with her. We named her 'Flynn', one of the main characters in the Disney movie "Tangled". OK, Flynn is a boy in that movie and the dog is a girl. I googled Flynn though and found out that Flynn is in the top 100 names for girls in Britain. Plus, it's a dog and Flynn is better than being named "Booger" or "Reptar" which is what the boys wanted to name her.
We are only on day four of having a dog again. So far, I can't remember why I wanted another dog. I have slept on the kitchen floor next to the kennel to stop her from screaming. I have soaked up her accidents with paper towel. I have yelled at her to stop chasing the cats and to stop jumping on child #4 (who has been yelled at to stop running because that entices the dog to chase)and to stop chewing on my furniture. Must be the look in her eye and the wag of her tail that makes me think there will be a day 5 of having a dog again.
In the meantime, I am thinking of changing my name to "Sucker" officially.
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