The Fish Pond: Meet Probably Pete

Our kids had been bugging us about getting a dog for a couple of years now, and we told them that once Nemo was potty trained we'd think about it. We started actively looking about a year ago, but we're high maintenance, so it took a while for the right dog to find us. I'm kinda partial to beagles, so we were looking for them in particular. My previous dog was a beagle mix, and a shelter rescue at that, so we concentrated our searches on shelters and rescues.

He found us three weeks ago, but we didn't think we'd end up being his forever family.

We visited the shelter to see another dog (I got email alerts whenever the local county shelter got a dog that fit our interests), and happened to see this one in the kennel across the way. On a whim we took him out for a walk, where he jumped up and licked Nemo's nose, causing the boy to run down the hill squealing "This dog LIKES me!" He was happy and social and tolerated our own two-legged puppies crawling all over him. He was the right dog.

Only there was another application ahead of us.

I didn't want to get the kids' hopes up, and we had actually seen the people that applied, so we concentrated on looking for other dogs. Once we didn't hear anything for a week, I figured he'd gone to the other family, and that was that. Only I got my email alert about a week later, and he popped back up on it.

Surprised, I called the shelter, only to be told that the other application was still in process.

Thursday they called to say that we were now application number one, and were we still interested?

Were we!

County adoption regulations require a home inspection/interview, and the shelter staffer told me I probably wouldn't hear from them for a few days, as one of their interviewers was out sick. That was fine with us, because I needed the weekend to get cleaned up and make the kids put all their toys away, and to prepare us for the needs of a dog.

Friday was a weird day. I was supposed to see the orthopedist to follow up on how my ankle is doing, but when I got to the office, they told me HE DIDN'T PRACTICE IN THAT LOCATION ANYMORE! Do you think they told me that? No. They didn't even think to look on the schedule to see if anyone was on it, since it had been "so long" since he'd been there. It couldn't have been that long, as I'd seen him in January at that location, but whatever. Peeved, I went home to grab a sandwich and get ready for a crazy afternoon of playing chauffeur. I was in the process of googling the doctor to see where he'd gone when the phone rang.

"Hi, FishyGirl? I'm Reviewer Lady from the shelter, and I was wondering if I could come to your house at 4:15 or so because I'm in your area going to another house first." Um, minor panic. Trout had to be at ballet at 4:15 in the next city south, and I can't be in two places at once. I asked if it was possible to switch with the other local person and do us first, so we could make ballet class. She said yes, and I panicked some more and began furiously stashing things and vacuuming in the 15 minutes it took her to get here. I shouldn't have bothered.

She came in, saw our babygate on our kitchen, which Nemo only just learned how to climb over a couple of weeks ago. We were going to take it down, but decided not to since we were looking for a dog to join the family, which I told her when she asked about it. I told her we had been looking for about a year and it had taken a while for the right dog to find us. At that point, I saw a light in her eyes, and could tell that she knew we "got it." After that, it was just a formality, and about 30 minutes later, she told us we were approved, and could we pick up the dog by 6:30?

Um? Seriously? Maybe?

We weren't ready. I had figured on having a day or so of the weekend at least to get a crate and food and bowls and poop cleanup stuff (to better encourage the kids to clean up after the dog) and a leash and whatnot. We wanted to get books on dog care and obedience from the library, to refresh my memory and help the kids learn how to act around the dog. Trout had ballet, two of my kids were at a playdate and needed picked up, and BigDaddyFish works on the other side of the Potomac in Virginia and traffic coming north on Friday evenings is hairy, at best. I had a minor panic, but she stressed how full the shelter was, and how if we got him that night, we'd be saving another dog's life. Simple as that.

I called BDF, gave him the quick rundown, he said he'd leave work immediately. I called the parent where my middles were on a playdate and she said she'd bring them home. So I took Trout to ballet, and immediately after ballet we met BDF at a pet store to grab some supplies, then head to the shelter to pick up our dog.

Meet Probably Pete. Or Pete, for short.

He was a stray, then spent three weeks at the shelter. He had kennel cough when we picked him up, so he just finished up his medicine. He's sweet and playful; he's very obviously had some training, and based on the way he behaves in the house, whoever was his owner before took good care of him (though not enough to get him microchipped so they could find him if he ran off, apparently). We're starting on crate training and house training, and it was going well at first, but we've made some mistakes that we have to overcome (we started before watching the training DVD the shelter sent home with us, and, well, things have changed a bit in the 20 years since the last time I did this). The pouring rain we have today isn't helping any. But we'll work on it.

It's an adjustment for all of us - the kids need as much training as the dog does. He has to go through mandatory obedience training as a stipulation of the adoption, so I'm going to ask if Trout and Little Man can attend with us. Maybe then they'll stop teaching him bad habits. But I don't really mind the arguing over who he's going to sleep with every night.

It wasn't how I had planned to spend my Friday night. We still don't have the groceries I usually pick up on Friday after ballet, and it'll take a while to get over the discombobulating day. But we already love him. Now to teach him some manners.