For about a year, Fred and I have talked off an on about getting a dog. Lots of talk for a while and then not any talk, and then more talk again. He really surprised me about a month ago when he talked about wanting us to go look for a dog together to get it by Christmas. I was totally blown away. Usually it’s me leading the march for something like this.
I knew he wanted a greyhound, so regardless of what the kids wanted, I wanted him to have a greyhound. He always puts aside what he wants for what everyone else wants. So, I started sending him pictures from greyhound rescues. We stopped talking about dogs for a couple of weeks when a week or so ago he sent me links to a list of greyhounds and then to the spca.
Both of our oldest kids have mentioned wanting either a bulldog or a boxer. Fred’s kids have two dogs at their mom’s house and we have our two cats. I didn’t really have a preference other than having a dog we both could agree on because then our kids would come along with us.
He saw an American Bulldog/Boxer mix at the SPCA in Annapolis named Chloe. I was pretty excited to go see her. When we walked in, I wanted to look at every dog, which I did. We found another Chloe who was a 6 mos old pitbull. She was beautiful, but rambunctious. Exactly what you’d expect for a puppy. There were so many dogs I fell in love with. Had their been an adult or senior dog that grabbed us, I would’ve been happy adopting them. I’m finally in a place where I’m ok with NOT having a puppy.
We came to Chloe and she was so sweet. The worker came and took us out to the yard. She was beautiful, pretty mellow, and we were smitten. I instagrammed her, and I couldn’t stop talking to Fred about her. Two days later we went back to drop off the application to adopt her and to spend more time with her. I’m glad we did. We went out to the yard and she still had no interest in us. Fred tried playing with her and she clamped down on his arm really hard. I tried not reacting because I wasn’t sure if Fred was in control or if she was. Turned out she was. He came away with a pretty nasty mark on his arm. With 4 kids who will want to play with her, we knew that would be no good. She also seemed to be extremely aggressive towards other dogs that either walked by her or she walked by. In fact, the trainer was outside with a dog and said if she let the dog go, Chloe would’ve been aggressive. Needless to say, we knew she wasn’t the dog for us and we were really bummed.
I suggested we go walk around again just to see if we liked any other dogs. I actually didn’t expect to find anything because we’d been there two days before.
Well, we walked around to the back wall of dogs and there she was…Peru. P-E-R-U! If you recall, I went to Peru a year and a half ago with Fred on my first mission trip. He’d also been to Peru the year before. I wasn’t even sure I was going to GO to Peru until I was flying back from my work conference and right there in the travel magazine was a two page layout of Peru.
Turns out, she had just come back into the kennel after being gone for two weeks. After she arrived she got sick and then had kennel cough and she needed to be spayed. It was apparent that at some point she’d had puppies. We asked to take her outside and I actually hovered over her door because there were so many people there. lol I tried being all nonchalant about it, but I didn’t want anyone else to look at her before we had a chance.
The gal came back and we went outside. She was definitely interested in all of the smells in the yard. She came to both of us and sat between our legs. She was pretty lovey when I tried kissing her by her face. We tugged her ears, tugged her tail and played with her. The worker got her to sit and to shake her paw. Fred played around with her and although she would jump up, she never once used her mouth. Not only that, she would stop playing and just sit as his feet. It was awesome! We knew we were changing our papers to her.
Peru is an unpapered purebred (I take that with a grain of salt) American Bulldog. We have no interest in having a purebred, we just wanted a family dog that fit our family. She’ll be two in January. When we read her paperwork it said a couple of times that it would take time to have her warm up to someone. We were shocked. That wasn’t our experience at all. She was right there, in our faces almost immediately.
Of course, I instagrammed her as well. What else was I supposed to do? lol We thought we had found our newest family member. Warning, our Instagram feed will be filled with all things Peru. There were so many people there, we figured, almost hoped it would be a week before we heard back. Why did we hope? Because Thanksgiving we’re going to my mom’s and with just transitioning her into the home, we weren’t sure how she’d be with my mom’s dogs. We wanted to get her after the Thanksgiving weekend. Wouldn’t you know it, a couple of hours later, Fred got the call that he was the proud new owner of Peru! Squeeeeee
We have a plan on how to surprise our kids. We’re going to take a picture and send it to them every day for a few days before the Sunday after Thanksgiving when they all get to see her for the first time! I’M going back to see her today (Sunday)! I went out and bought her dog bowls, a leash, a collar, and some toys. I’m going to take them and one of our blankets to her after church!
Have you ever rescued a dog?
- $30 ARV
