An Almost

I'm feeling sad right now and I really shouldn't. I wasn't going to reveal any of this to anyone until it came to fruition, BUT we were going to get a certain dog. And then today someone else adopted her. Which is probably just great for her, but makes me sad that she is not coming to live at our house.

I saw her picture on Petfinder. She was an 11 month old pointer puppy at the South LA Shelter. According to their website, she had an injury. We went down to see her on Tuesday night. It was a mild pelvic fracture, cureable by 4 weeks of kennel rest. She licked our hands through the bars and wiggled with joy. She especially liked Ryan. She rolled over and showed us her belly. She looked like a brown and white female version of Jake. They told us that she came in with injuries, was probably hit by a car, but that x-ray revealed only a mild fracture. She was very sweet, had on a nice collar, and had been someone's pet. Excellent temperment.

We talked it over and thought about it and called the shelter's vet and had a conversation with her about the prognosis (excellent) and medications and procedure needed. She'd have to spend a month in the kennel, coming out only to go to the bathroom. Other than that, no special care needed. There was an organization that would pay 50% of any vet bills. They would give us the x-rays to take to the vet.

We talked it over and called and talked to the vet who is in charge of deciding which animals will be euthanized. She told us that while there were no guarantees, unless something weird happened where a ton of sick dogs came in and she needed the kennel space by Saturday, she'd be still there Saturday. She'd been there for a month already.

I guess I did not count on someone else seeing her and adopting her. But that's what happened. Ryan was going to come home and we were going to go see her tonight again, and talk to them about possibly paying for her now but leaving her there to recouperate longer or putting some kind of hold on her. Anyway, I checked the website again and suddenly the animal was missing from the database. :( I spent a long 10 minutes hitting redial and getting a busy signal and fearing the worst, until I could get a staff member on the phone.

Happily, they told me that a rescue group took her today. I asked which one, but they could not give me that information. (They did say they could tell the rescue group that I asked about her, and if the group was interested they would call me.) So, at least I know she is safe, but I'm selfishly feeling sad that she is not safe in *my* arms.

By the way, the hard thing about this dog is that before this, there were dogs that I liked that Ryan didn't, or he didn't think we were ready. Or dogs that intellectually I knew would be good dogs but just didn't feel that spark for. This dog reminded me so much of Jake. And I have been really missing Jake a lot lately. One of the volunteers at the shelter talked us out of adopting a dog that they thought was potentially too rambunctious to have around a toddler. The woman said, "if you had a pointer or lab before, why not get another one? They are good family dogs." It was from that line of reasoning that I even looked on Petfinder to find the "almost" pointer.

I know we will get another dog one day and I know that she or he will be great and perfect for our family. But this is reminding me too much of the real estate market, when we would make offers on houses and then they would get into these bidding wars $100,000 over asking, and we'd be disappointed when we didn't get the place. Then finally when we got our place, before they accepted our bid I was convincing myself that I didn't even care so I was more blasé about the whole thing than I should have been. I'm trying not to lose hope about getting a dog. And I know that anyway, it's not like a house. When you have the dog you fall for them more and more each day. But I wish that day would come soon!