Archive for May, 2006

Zing, zing, zing went my heartstrings
From the moment I saw him I fell

All we were going to do is look. Really.

On Saturday, at my urging, Mel and I started on a tour of dog rescue group meet-and-greets to see what kinds of dogs were available. I had seen lots of pictures on the web over the last couple of months, but photos rarely show a dog’s true nature. The descriptions of each animal helped, but still, there is nothing like first-hand experience. Mostly because of PetSmart’s National Adopt-A-Thon this weekend, there were lots of groups out showing off their best dogs, so now was a good time to go.

It has been more than a year since Tiamo passed away. I didn’t want to get another dog any sooner than that, because I wanted to make sure my heart had enough time to heal. Tiamo had been with me a long, long time and I didn’t want to, couldn’t bear to replace her too soon. But it was time.

We had gone to one location up in North Austin to see some very nice shih tzu and lhasha dogs, but none had caught my fancy. On our way to a location in far South Austin, we decided to head over to a second South Austin location that was sort of on the way, just because we were early for the other event. I had looked at this particular group’s web site and hadn’t seen anything I thought I would be interested in. I wanted a small, female mix, preferrably part poodle. Sort of like Tiamo, but not exactly, and a tad bigger. All they had were males. But what the heck, we were in the neighborhood.

On our way south, I told Mel about how most of the dogs I’ve owned have been rescued from dire straits. One in particular, Koko, was a pound puppy owned by the little old lady across the street from where we lived when I was in high school. She got Koko to be a companion for her little old chihuahua, but Koko soon doubled the chi’s size. The little old lady decided to take Koko back to the pound, because her decrepit chi couldn’t handle the springy basenji mix that Koko turned out to be.

The day before Koko’s journey back to hell, she decided to jump the old lady’s four-foot chainlink fence. She saw me standing in our front yard, ran across the street, and jumped into my arms. The old lady ran after her, apologizing, saying she was going to take Koko to the pound so she wouldn’t bother us anymore. Nope, I said. She’s not going to the pound. She’s staying with me. So she did.

I finished the story right as we drove up to the pet store and parked. As we walked up to the rescue tent, a fuzzy little black and white dog started going berserk. He wiggled and whined and wagged and nearly turned himself upside down and inside out. When I put my hand down to him to greet him, he nearly climbed up my arm, so I reached out and picked him up. As soon as he felt secure in my hold, he was all instant calm and relaxation. He settled into my chest, put his head on my shoulder and… Zing!

So we stood in the muggy May afternoon and talked to the foster mom a while. She mentioned that she had never seen him react that way before. They gave us an application and I gave them back the dog and we went on our way to another pet store. Then we went to lunch, where I spent most of the time filling out the application instead of eating. Then, just before the meet-and-greet’s scheduled end time, we drove up with our application. I didn’t think we had a chance getting this fellow, because he’s such a cutie and he’s got such a great personality, but I wanted to try.

We gave them app, they looked it over and then went over our answers with us. Then they handed the pup to me to hold while they conferred some more. Then they came over and asked if we wanted to take him with us for a trial adoption. Highly irregular, they said, but they all saw the chemistry earlier and couldn’t believe it and definitely couldn’t ignore it. Plus, our application was sterling. Astonished, I could barely nod, much less say anything. Fortunately, Mel was much less verklempt.

You know, I really really wanted a female, for a lot of good reasons. But you can’t argue with fate. This dog may not be exactly what I wanted, but maybe he’s exactly what I need.

So here he is. Meet Domino, the new OneLittleDog. I think Tiamo would approve.