This Is My Life

Yesterday we went to the SPCA and took Pooh Bear out for a stroll around the local PetSmart. Apparently, the SPCA allows a few nice dogs to go out to the SPCA every Saturday in hopes of attracting people to adopt. Since we wanted to make sure Pooh Bear got a good home (because honestly, we fell a little in love with her, being suckers for nice dogs) we thought this was a good idea. We headed over at around 10 AM, and by 10:30 we were at PetSmart.

By noon I was about ready to give up. People didn't seem interested, and Pooh Bear, having just had surgery, was overly protective of herself, growing at any man that walked by, and going crazy at just about any dog* that went in and out the entrance. I thought we had no hope.

And yet.

We arrived back at the SPCA around 1 PM, feeling slightly defeated until a voice broke through my insulating attitude, "There she is!" I looked up, and instantly recognized the couple that had talked to us for a good ten minutes about whether or not we thought Pooh Bear would be good with a cat and an 8 year old. We had to tell them we had no idea, so I counted them out, but here they were, filling out the paperwork!

Pooh Bear got adopted!

Yay!

They've never had a dog before, so she's probably going to quickly become the one in charge, but hopefully they'll take our advice and get some lessons. Pooh Bear needs to burn her physical and mental energy, and unless they learn how to take care of a dog properly (she was an impulse adoption, not a fully-informed one, but hopefully they realize that this is a big deal) Pooh Bear will have control of the house inside a week. Maybe the cat will put her in her place? Maybe.

So, on that note, allow me to introduce you to a pup named Cody:



He wasn't doing so well in a shelter, unable to keep food down and getting so skinny that he's nothing but skin and bones. The food they gave him, as well as the atmosphere around him just didn't get along with this sensitive little boy's temperament. He's a sweetie, and a cutie, and while he's a little too aggressive with our girls off-leash so far**, yesterday was only his first day, and the fact that they got along enough to allow us to let them all play off-leash is great!

We've got him for a month to fatten him up, teach him some manners, and generally get him into adopting shape. He already knows all the doggy tricks, from Sit to Roll Over, so we're good there. We just have to make this big guy healthy again!

Have I mentioned I'm a sucker for dogs? Maria is too.

*I say "just about any" because the one dog she was okay with was a Great Dane, roughly 57,384 times bigger than her. Beautiful dog, with nice owners who let me pet him. Heh.

**He, um, tried to hump them. A lot. They were going to bite his face off, but he didn't care. He IS neutered.

Our dogs aren't sure what to make of the new addition. Their "cousin" as we call her is smaller than either of them, fairly well-behaved except for a little puppy excitement, and growls at them in a "this is my house" kind of way through the fence when they meet.

It's weird.

Monster and MaiTai will be okay with her eventually, we think, and she'll be okay with them. I'm glad we picked her up on Saturday so that we could have almost all of today and all of tomorrow together to get them used to one another. I think we'll probably do it that way in the future too.

We have Pooh Bear until the 19th, when her medicine for kennel cough is done, and then we bring her back to the SPCA. She'll get spayed and put up for adoption, hopefully going to a fantastic family!

You'd think that there would be a problem letting go, and there may be. Still, when you foster dogs you have to get used to letting the dogs go, otherwise you'd end up with 17 dogs and be unable to help any others. That's not the goal here, and so you have to just learn to say "Goodbye."

The best way to do that is to focus on the fact that the foster animal will be going back to get a good home, and that your influence on their life is a way to get them both well placed and perhaps a little more used to the world around them.

Do you think that's a good way to look at it? Would you be able to let go?