Incidentally, today is the 5th anniversary of Lucy's adoption. Or maybe tomorrow should be. See, the quirky thing is that we adopted her on Leap Day of 2004 (Feb. 29). So I never quite know whether the anniversary should be the 28th, or March 1st. Maybe Lucy will come wandering up to our front door tomorrow, and that'll settle the matter.
In any case, we had gone to an adoption clinic at the Pet Smart in Wilton, NY. The SPCA of Upstate NY had a bunch of dogs, at least several of whom had been rescued from a kill shelter in Tennessee. (A volunteer had rented a van, driven down to TN, and then drove back up to NY with as many dogs as she could fit in the van.) We weren't particularly planning on adopting a dog that day, but we were testing the waters with an intention of getting a dog in the near future. Steph had wanted to go see a dog named Nitro; I think she had seen him on Petfinder.org. While she was looking at Nitro, I looked at the kennel next to his. I saw Lucy's face and felt a little bit like I had found my way home at the end of a long night.
We took her for a walk in the parking lot, where she dropped a gigantic steaming poo. After I picked it up, we looked at each other and said, "She just kind of feels like our dog."
So, without having set out to do so, we went home with a dog that Saturday. And of course, at some point during that first week, I think we each had several "Oh god, what have we done" moments, but things settled. Eventually. (Sometime remind me to tell you the story of the feather pillow.) We managed to train her, she reciprocated by training us a little too. She has unabashedly butt-wiggled her way into the hearts of virtually every person she's met. And since that Leap Day, she has inhabited a substantial place at the core of things for me.
No comments:
Post a Comment