Wednesday morning, while Bill was out of town on business with our son, I stopped by a friend’s house to pick something up on my way to work. While I was on her porch Bill called on the cell phone and heard my friend’s dog barking. With some excitement in his voice he asked, “Is that a dog?”, thinking perhaps that I had gotten a new pet for us. I had to tell him it was my friend’s dog. But it got me to thinking that he’s waiting for me to initiate finding a new pooch for our household. So I spent a couple of hours Wednesday afternoon at local animal shelters. Coincidentally, the same day a feature story on the front page of the newspaper was about it being Animal Adoption Week and several local animal agencies are having a big event at a local pet store this weekend. After visiting with several dogs of varying mixed pedigrees, I found a little fellow that just keeps coming back to my mind. He’s a one- year- old shih tzu named Rascal at the Humane Shelter. He is an owner-surrender animal. He’s very cowed down, giving the impression that he has been abused, said the veterinary tech. They don’t yet have him up for adoption, as he is going to have to be evaluated by an animal behaviorist (?) before he can be adopted out. I didn’t know we had such a thing in Bay County! I held Rascal and walked him around on the grounds. He is very tentative about people. He has a cute little underbite and big, black, imploring eyes. I can see him in our home, sitting in our laps, lying in our bed. I think that the thing that is striking about him is that, just as I felt with Abby when I first found her, he needs us. This is a little fellow that deserves to be happy and, as anyone who’s familiar with the Byrd house knows, our pets are happy.
I talked to our veterinarian about Rascal. He seems to think that with time and care Rascal can be all that a little companion dog should be. So I put in an application to adopt Rascal when he’s cleared. Now we wait.
PS. A week after this post, we learned that Rascal’s behavior assessment indicated that he would not fare well with cats. Since we have three in our home, our application was put aside and he was adopted by another family. We know God knows best, for Rascal and for us.