Welcome, Luna!

Ever since we had to put Maddy to sleep in December, we've talked about getting a puppy.  At first, it was, "We'll definitely get a puppy, but in a few months, after we've had time to heal."  Then it was, "Ostara would be a good time to get a puppy."  Then the grown-up and kid voices diverged a bit.  The grown-ups started saying things like, "Well, maybe April would be better than March.." and the kids were more like, "But Daddy, I'll just die if I don't get a puppy.."

So there was a little bit of tension for a few weeks, but finally we started looking more seriously at shelters and Petfinder.  We saw that one of the rescue groups that we liked had a litter of fourteen lab/pointer/boxer puppies, so we made plans to head out to see them on Sunday.

The rescue group has a storefront in a run-down mall about a half hour away.  They're only there on the weekends, from noon to maybe 5pm.  We got there a few minutes before noon, but the group was a no-show until almost 1pm.  It was torture sitting there waiting, but boy, did our patience pay off.  They started carrying the puppies in a few at a time, and they were so tiny and adorable.  After they got settled, we spent a while watching the puppies play with each other to get an idea of their temperament.  After narrowing it down to a few choices, we started taking them out one at a time and doing 'puppy tests.'

There were several other families in there checking out the puppies, and a few of them were clearly intrigued by what we were doing, and started trying it on the puppies they had out.  It was kind of funny, because they clearly didn't know what they were looking for.  Monkey see, monkey do.

So we finally narrowed it down to a boy and a girl, then after some more snuggling with the girl, we decided to go with her.  We were a little worried about the application process, mainly because our property management office is closed on the weekends, and we didn't know if the rescue would need to call them.  I was also keeping in close contact with my sister (our reference), to make sure she'd answer the phone if they called.  Well, I filled out the application, the rescue person looked it over briefly, asked if the kids knew how to be gentle with puppies, and then took our payment.  It was the least strenuous adoption process I've ever been through.

Before we knew it, we were in the car with our new puppy!  We headed over to Petsmart to pick up a few things:  dog food, some bones and toys, a collar, etc.  I can't get over how tiny she is (6 lbs!), we had to get an extra-small collar and make it as small as we could.  We hadn't had a chance to order a big crate from Amazon, so I'd been worried about where she'd sleep for the first few nights.. but she easily fits in the cat carrier, so we can put off purchasing a big crate for a little bit.

We started tossing around names on the way home.  Niall liked Iron Man and Trainette.  Fiona liked Elsa and Cutie.  The rest of us liked Mabel, Daisy, Daffodil, Luna, Lilo, Minnie, and a few others I'm probably forgetting.  Finally by bedtime, we had it narrowed down to Mabel, Daisy, and Luna.  We couldn't choose, so we wrote the names on paper, crumpled them up, and tossed them to her, to see which one she'd pick.  She started chewing on Luna, so Luna she is!