The girl who stole our hearts

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I recently completed the adoption of the best rescue dog in the world.  In late 2023 she was found behind a Walmart, in a dumpster, in California’s Central Valley, where it’s hot and dusty as hell.  And if all of that wasn’t enough she was busy nursing nine puppies.

 

A good samaritan took her to a no-kill animal shelter where she was allowed to stay with her puppies until they were ready to be adopted.  Once the puppies found their forever home’s, mom’s fate became uncertain because she had served her purpose.  After the pups were gone what value did mom have?  She was reactive, distrusting of strangers, lacked confidence, didn’t like men and could be aggressive towards other dogs.

 

Upending the status quo

 

For the past five years my border collie and I had lived a quiet life.  We had developed a rhythm and schedule that was predictable.  Some described our lives as boring and they were right.  We were like an old married couple.

 

But every day for two years I asked him, “Should we get another dog?  How would you feel?  It would disrupt our routine.  How would you feel about that?”

 

He never gave me a definitive answer.

 

Selfishly, I missed having two dogs.  I missed having different personalities to manage, watching them wrestle, and most of all I missed watching the bond between all of us take shape.

 

The search begins

 

I spent all of 2022 debating the pluses and minuses of getting another dog.  After deciding that adoption was what I wanted to do, I devoted 2023 and early 2024 to trying to find the perfect dog.  When I started the search I figured it would be easy.  There are approximately three million homeless dogs at any given time.  I thought I’d have my choice of canines.

 

I learned quickly that about a third never get a chance to be adopted.  Either they’re too old, too sick or are at too high a risk of being returned to the adoption agency so they’re euthanized.  Young dogs who don’t have a lot of baggage get adopted quickly.  The dogs who are three-to-eight years old, who have been abandoned with personality quirks that you need to either learn to live with or, hopefully, train out of them, stand a moderate chance of being adopted.

 

I scanned ads, animal shelter listings, rescue sites, looked in other states and replied to 173 ads over fourteen months.  I received one response. Primarily I was looking for a retriever or a shepherd.  I was no different than anyone else, I wanted to be one of the cool kids and have a cool dog.

 

It took me a while to learn that the animal adoption process is badly broken. Adoption agencies and shelters are overcrowded and the staff is way overworked.  There are too many dogs and too few people willing to adopt one that doesn’t make the family Christmas card a work of art.

 

The browned eyed girl

 

One night in February 2024, I was mindlessly surveying an adoption website that I had visited hundreds of times in the past.

 

This time I saw my dream girl.  No one directed me to her. I didn’t see an ad, nor was she the featured dog of the week.  It was just dumb luck that I saw her.  I knew instantly that I wanted her.

 

She’s proportionally too short for her body, she had just given birth, clearly she was part beagle but the rest, who knows.  The dog-tor said she might be part corgi and a little dachshund too.  She’s tan, with the classic white beagle markings (except for her tail).  Her ears aren’t beagle shaped, they’re more like that of a lab.  She was the perfect body double for a retriever or shepherd.

 

I wrote to the adoption agency and was invited for a meet and greet.  The rules were that I had to stay on one side of the fence and she would be on the other and if my border collie accompanied me, his leash had to drop on the ground for at least six feet.

 

Generally I am a rule follower, especially when there’s something I want hanging in the balance.  In this case I pushed back and asked how it would be possible to meet a dog through a fence.  I explained, something that seemed obvious to me, that if I were to adopt her I’d be making a financial and emotional commitment for at least a decade and I wasn’t willing to do that based solely on a meeting through a fence.

 

“Those are the rules,” I was told.

 

I made a counter proposal which involved sitting on a bench and giving her treats. The proposal was rejected because I would be “jeopardizing the safety of everyone involved” I was told.

 

 

My counter proposal also drew this response, “Other parties are now interested in her.  You are no longer a candidate.”

 

For the next nine days I wrote to the agency asking how those “other candidates” were working out.  I received zero replies.

 

A more senior person received my tenth email. “You have consistently tried to change the rules.  You are no longer a candidate for this dog.  We wish you luck in your search,” she wrote.

 

That response was over-the-top so I fired off my eleventh email.  This missive was five pages long and explained that I didn’t disagree with the process, I just wanted to get out from behind the fence.  “Let me meet her and let’s see what happens.”

 

About five hours later I received a response from a supervisor who admitted the staff made a series of bad decisions and that my dog and I were welcome to meet the adoptee.  I would be allowed to touch the adoptee, as long as I was seated on a bench, and the dogs would be taken for a walk by the adoption center staff to see how they got along.

 

The first meeting didn’t go well.  The adoptee was provocative toward my dog and she wouldn’t let me touch her.  Five adults, including a animal behaviorist, and two dogs essentially looked at each other for 90 minutes.

 

“This isn’t over,” I said.  “Today was rough but let’s try again next week and see if we get the same result.  If she doesn’t like us next week then it’s over.”

 

The second meeting was better.  When my collie, Bentley, and I walked through the play yard gate, Libby, remembered us and came barreling over to say hello.  Libby jabbed her nose at Bentley because she wanted him to chase her, which he did.  They wrestled and alternated who was dominant and who was submissive.

 

Libby let me rub her butt and play with her ears, something she wouldn’t allow me to do the first time I met her.  I played with her toes and wagged her tail to see if I would get a negative reaction.  There was none.  She was fine with me touching with her.

 

As I played with her ears I whispered, “How about a kiss?”  I got a slobbery wet kiss right on the lips.

 

We let the dogs play together for 45-minutes.  Bentley is about half of Libby’s weight but that didn’t deter him.  He made sure to let Libby know that theirs was going to be a 50-50 relationship.

 

The two-week trial

 

I was given the option to adopt Libby for two weeks to see how things work out or we could do a third meet and greet.  There was no decision to be made, I was going to take her.  As I was filling out the temporary adoption paperwork I thought, “She’s not coming back in two weeks.  Who are you kidding?”

 

Four really long days later the foster mom brought Libby to my house.  It was like a different dog had appeared.  Libby cuddled in my lap, she gave me kisses and she roughhoused with Bentley.

 

Things didn’t go smoothly those first few days.  The Libby and Bentley fought, each trying to establish their role in the relationship.  I couldn’t figure out biological schedules. Libby was a lousy leash walker and she refused to hang out with us, preferring instead, to spend time alone.  And I discovered that she hates squirrels.  She will sit at the bottom of a tree howling until either the squirrel runs away or I carry her home.  More often than not, I carry her home.

 

I wondered if I had made a mistake.  “Nope.  I can turn her around because she’s meant to be here,” I said to myself.

 

Despite the complexities and personality differences, I called the adoption agency two days into our fourteen day trial adoption and said, “I’m keeping her.  Let’s finalize the adoption.”  I was determined to make it work.

 

It took about ten days for Libby to understand I wasn’t merely an another stop on the merry-go-round of foster homes.  She watched how Bentley would lay on my chest when I’d read in bed.  She tried it one night and fell sleep.

 

She was home.

 

 

Libby and I worked out a walking schedule which gets her out of the house every few hours to burn off some energy, and to protect our neighborhood from squirrels. In exchange she agreed to eat a Wag each day as part of her dental regimen.

 

I don’t see a heck of a lot of Bentley or Libby on any given day.  Even though I work at home, they spend their time wrestling, exchanging bones, and sleeping.  An hour or two later the zoomies start and the chaos begins again.  Our house becomes a circus of two crazy dogs, squeaky toys, tennis balls and spilled water on the floor.

 

It happens every day.

 

This is Libby’s twelfth week at home.  According to “the experts” she’s probably fully acclimated by now.  That scared little girl who wouldn’t let me touch her ears now lays on top of me and gives me kisses upon request.  She falls asleep next to her brother and takes me on walks though parts of my neighborhood that I never knew existed.

 

The big dog bed had been a bone of contention  When she first started sharing the big bed Bentley was annoyed.  Then he started to clean her ears while she slept.  Now they sleep so closely together you can’t wedge a dollar bill between them.

 

When one comes back from a walk the other is at the door to ask if anything new or exciting happened.  In dog speak Libby gives Bentley a rundown of the friends she saw and the locations of the geese, ducks and squirrels.

 

“Go get ‘em,” she howls as Bentley and I head out the door.

 

For those trying to adopt

 

To those of you who may be experiencing frustration with the dog or cat adoption process, I encourage you to hang in there.  As difficult as the process is for you, try being a dog.

 

There’s a lot of trial, error, rebooting and humility that takes place as you try to adopt a pet. If you’re serious about the process you need to realize it can be hard.  You’ll be interviewed, people you don’t know will watch how you handle yourself around the adoptee, you may have someone conduct a home visit and if you live in an apartment be ready to answer the question:  where will the dog be when you’re not home and where will it go to the bathroom?

 

I hated the process.  There were plenty of times when I wanted to give up and just live my life with Bentley.  But Libby is a gem and was totally worth the two-and-a-half year search.  Retrievers and shepherds are the cool dogs.  I get it.  But a certain tan beagle who howls at squirrels is the perfect fit for Bentley and me.

 

Share your experiences below in the comment box.

 

Woof.