Dog-tober

Looking through pictures from October, it seems it was the month of the dog.  A few months ago, we began visiting our local animal shelter.  We wanted to get A & M more accustomed to dogs, in hopes that we might bring one home one day.  We did bring a puppy home (on a trial basis) for the weekend back in the summer, but we quickly realized it wasn't going to work out.  Jeremy and I just weren't up for many, many daily trips outside that a potty-training puppy requires, plus the constant vigilance required to keep the girls' toys and other household items safe from small, sharp teeth. (An aside:  We are definitely "inside dog" people...our backyard is not fenced right now, plus we know that an outside dog would get very little attention in our home.  If we're going to have one, it lives inside with us.)

In early October, I saw a post on FB that the shelter needed a foster home for a couple of small dogs who were going to a rescue group up north.  The two dogs in question were both a couple of years old and housetrained, and it would only be for a week, since the rescue pickup was already scheduled.  It sounded like the perfect situation for us.  I went by the shelter and picked up this little guy to hang out with us for the week:

He was fantastic.  Slightly older, calm, and he could not have cared less about the girls' toys.  He didn't even pick up food we dropped on the floor, and he refused the treats I bought!  (Okay, so maybe he was lacking a little in the personality department, but still, he was just what we needed to get the girls acclimated to an animal in the house.)  Buddy, as we called him, went on to the rescue group, where we heard he was very quickly adopted to a great family.

I kept watching the shelter site, knowing now that we wanted a slightly older, adult dog.  When I saw "Brenna", as her foster home had been calling her, I knew we had to check her out.  She is definitely older, estimated to be about seven, with quite a few gray hairs and a few missing teeth from lots of vigorous chewing over the years.  We heard one family's vet convinced them that she was too old to be adopted to a family with small children...apparently suggesting that she might not live very many more years?  We don't care; we loved her immediately.  We call her Sunny, and she is ours!

A & M are thrilled to have a dog, but even more thrilled to have a dog that has not once jumped on them and pretty much just lays around, waiting for someone to scratch her belly.  She is developing an affinity for the million-plus small stuffed animals laying around the house, but the girls are doing well at putting them away, and weren't too upset over the first victim, a green grinch-type guy.  Sunny doesn't bark, sleeps by my side of the bed, loves to take car rides, and stays with us when she's outside without her leash.  We have definitely found our perfect match.