In a moment of weakness, we drove two hours out to the Brainerd shelter and picked up this bundle of happy energy. We had been considering getting Elian his own dog for a while. Norman will be 11 this year and he's not a big fan of playful childish antics. He's sort of like a grumpy old man. On top of that, he suffered a pretty bad seizure while we were in Florida and his inevitable mortality sort of hit home.
Elian is a boy who love, love, loves dogs. And he love, love, loves to get his face in Norman's face all day long, grab his head and give him hugs and try to get him riled up for a game of tug-a-war. In response, Norman usually retreats to the upstairs bed as if to say, "Nice try, kid." He's also super careful around Elian; he's afraid to take the other end of the toy -- out of fear of hurting Elian I imagine. We can have an intense game of tug-a-war going, I'll hand the tug toy to Elian and Norman will just drop it. I feel bad for Norman. But mostly I feel bad for Elian. Here he is uber-dog-lover who wants to constantly play with a dog and he has a dog who doesn't even want to play with him.
Over the course of a few months, I've been emailing potential dogs to Ed, and ladies and gentlemen, I successfully wore the man down. Again, I hadn't been very excited about the puppy idea, but I also felt like for Elian to truly feel like the dog was his, the dog would have to be pretty young.
We made the two-hour trip to the Brainerd shelter bringing Norman along for the introduction. If it didn't go well, I was prepared to go home puppyless. We also didn't want to build Elian's expectations. He had no idea we were even considering getting him a puppy, so I wove a tale about how we would visit this "place" where we could pet puppies much like we pet the kitty cats at Petsmart and Norman could have a chance to meet a puppy too! There was no mention of the possibility of bringing said puppy home. And he bought every word of it. He never even questioned why we'd have to drive two hours to pet puppies.
We called to make sure she hadn't been adopted before we left. Since the hours were 11-2, with a two-hour drive, it didn't give us a lot of time. We arrived there 15 minutes before close. Ed and Elian waited out in the lobby with Norman while I went into the kennel area with my blinders on to the other dogs out of fear I'd want to adopt all of them (there were a lot). I walked past several cages with people standing in front of them, worried that someone was in the process of adopting her or taking her out to meet her. Luckily, no one was in front of her cage. As soon as I approached it, she pounced to the door, tail wagging like her life depended on it (and I guess in some sense it could have). And it was love at first sight.
We brought her out to the lobby and happily Norman did not want to eat her! And Elian and Ed fell in love as quickly as I did. That's it, a few papers signed, an adoption fee and bada bing bada boom she's home with us. And I wish I could show you what I see from my computer right now. I'll give you a hint, it's totally cute.
