{"id":4702,"date":"2015-04-25T17:30:10","date_gmt":"2015-04-25T21:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=4702"},"modified":"2015-04-25T17:30:10","modified_gmt":"2015-04-25T21:30:10","slug":"new-dog-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=4702","title":{"rendered":"New Dog!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been searching for a new dog since before Christmas, without success and some painful disappointments<\/a>.\u00a0 At first it was too hard to look.\u00a0 I was going to go to a shelter with a friend and got sick at the last minute.\u00a0 Eventually I became more able to take on the task.\u00a0 I bookmarked nearby shelters and the Pet search engines: Petfinder<\/a> and Adopt-a-pet<\/a>.\u00a0 I applied for more than one dog and was told they already had many applications.\u00a0 I asked about a dog on a poodle rescue site in Massachusetts, and they said they didn\u2019t adopt outside their area because they need to do a home visit.<\/p>\n

About three weeks ago I checked Adoptapet and there were no dogs that fit my criteria (female, small, 3-10 years old) within 100 miles.\u00a0 That really cast me down.\u00a0 The pet search sites offer a service: you can save your search criteria and they will let you know when a dog comes in, so I did that on both of them.\u00a0 The first dog that came in I wasn\u2019t interested in.<\/p>\n

A week ago Tuesday (April 14) my friend Eve came for the day.\u00a0 I was really glad she came because I didn\u2019t see Erica that Tuesday.\u00a0 She was determined to find me a dog.\u00a0 I showed her how to look on my computer.\u00a0 We looked at lots of dogs (most of them are big and male) and finally I got overwhelmed and backed off.\u00a0 She kept going, bless her, and found a dog, in northern Vermont, that looked like a possible.\u00a0 She was a Shih Tzu mix, something I had tried to find.\u00a0 I looked at the pictures and she certainly looked worth investigating.\u00a0 Eve said \u201cLet\u2019s call them now.\u201d\u00a0 I panicked, so she dialed the phone and got them on the line.\u00a0 After a few sentences she said \u201cIt\u2019s really for my friend,\u201d and handed the phone to me.\u00a0 It turned out that they had only had her for four days.\u00a0 She was in Orleans VT, which was about 25 minutes from Hardwick VT, where I was going to see my dentist on Friday.\u00a0 So I made an appointment to see her Friday afternoon. \u00a0Her name was Falicia.<\/p>\n

\"falicia\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The next time I checked my email there was one from Adoptapet with a picture of Falicia.\u00a0 Guess the universe was determined I should get her.<\/p>\n

The shelter didn\u2019t have an online application.\u00a0 I had first thought I\u2019d just wait til Friday and fill it out there. \u00a0I would have to wait two days after the application was filed before I could take her away.\u00a0 Then I emailed them to send me a PDF.\u00a0 I printed it out and filled it out, and was going to take it with me on Friday.\u00a0 Wednesday morning, I couldn\u2019t wait, so I went to Pam\u2019s and faxed it.\u00a0 She runs a doggy day care center as well as the Franconia Business Connection.<\/p>\n

On Friday I barely felt the cleaning at the dentist.\u00a0 Driving to Orleans I smiled all the way, with occasional jabs of fear that I wouldn\u2019t \u201cpass\u201d their application.\u00a0 The first thing I asked was about the application and they said it was fine, I was acceptable.\u00a0 They put me in a room, and brought her to me.\u00a0 She backed away from me and shivered.\u00a0 They gave me the leash that was attached to her harness, and she wiggled out of her harness and ran to her handler.\u00a0 I asked them to leave me alone with her so they did.\u00a0 Again she slipped out of her harness.\u00a0 I ran her into a corner and sat down to block her in.\u00a0 Then I decided to play Alpha dog and put my hand on her back.\u00a0 She fairly quickly calmed down.\u00a0 I asked if I could take her that day and they said yes.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t know whether to be delighted or terrified.\u00a0 I got her papers, paid the fee, and we went out to my car.<\/p>\n

I opened the door and she jumped right in.\u00a0 As I drove home, she kept trying to climb in my lap, and I would push her back.\u00a0 Because we were on the highway, in cruise control, I wasn\u2019t so worried that she would interfere with my driving.\u00a0 I finally let her stay on my lap and put my hand on her for a while.\u00a0 Then I dumped her back on the passenger seat where she stayed. \u00a0I didn’t think she was a “Falicia” so I \u00a0called her “Petunia.” \u00a0She’ll probably acquire a number of names.<\/p>\n

\"petunia1A\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It hasn\u2019t taken very long \u2014 I\u2019ve had her a week and a day \u2014 for her to become very comfortable on the couch next to me.\u00a0 She follows me everywhere, except now she\u2019s started to trust that I\u2019ll come back, so when I get up to make tea she stays on the couch.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s been a huge surprise is how quickly I fell in love with her, and how happy I\u2019ve been.\u00a0 It makes a huge difference having a being constantly around who I love, and who is at least attached to me \u2014 I\u2019m not quite ready to accept that she loves me, but being a dog, she probably does.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been searching for a new dog since before Christmas, without success and some painful disappointments.\u00a0 At first it was too hard to look.\u00a0 I was going to go to a shelter with a friend and got sick at the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,11,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-healing","category-present-day","category-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4702\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}