yay

We adopted a dog today!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
His name is Pico. We adopted him from the Kennebec county Humane society.
I will post a pic shortly-have a couple but have not downloaded them yet.

Here's the story:
Last night I was noodling about online and image searched "Mastino"-because I was thinking of one of the dogs that we had looked at on Tuesday, and thought perhaps they had mislabelled him (as an Akita/husky) He didn't look like any of the photos, but they brought back a lot of fond memories of my bullmastiffs!!!

Then I had an urge to check Craigslist, and the most recent entrywas for a Mastiff!!!! Heart pounding, it took three email accounts to get a reply through, an hour after initial posting. Then I got offline to free up the phone line (gotta love dialup) and tried to stay busy hoping for a return call. Ha! No call.

During the night I had a dream (of course I have many, but this one stuck) that Louise was alive again. Not like before she was dead-in the dream I was petting her, thinking she was here again, although she had died.

I awoke before the rest of the house, and was sitting downstairs waiting for my morning cuppa, and recalled the dream, and sat on the couch bawling, missing the dog, STILL. (not like me-damn hormones)

The Augusta shelter opened at ten-we rushed through morning chores and the Willow was in the car before I had even changed...LOL

The staff was busy (being first thing), and we were directed to sign the guest book and take a look. Of course I started checking out the ones I had pre-selected, but could only locate two of four. Number six (a maybe) was a senior pitbull, a red fawn, that looked like our Cherokee, sans black mask. He was pathetic. Beautiful dog, nine years old,starting to get cataracts, skins tags, and a ping pong sized growth on his back hock. He whined nose to the fence while we sympathized, and the Firebird insisted we get him. (he broke my heart, too)( I will add that anyone coming in looking for a dog while we were waiting, I said quietly, "get Ollie" so hopefully he will find a home soon!)

The Willow was interested in a young black/lab chow cross, Frankie, so we waited for the dog lady, Melinda. Melinda knew her stuff. We had some minutes of discussion of various dogs while she sized us up, and finally suggested she had a young pit bull/lab cross in the back dog room that might be a good fit, would we like her to bring him out? We said, "yes," and waited. We never did see the back dog room, but we were told it was rough out there.

I was expecting a black coated dog, and was quite suprised when she brought out a mediuim-sized brindle with a white splash on his chest. He is medium sized, quite lean, with a more of a shepard cast to his face-half flopped baby ears and a longer nose. Although that could be the pit; I am not too familiar with the breed.

He is a doll. Loves to fetch a tennis ball, quite happy with all three of us, already neutered. He was a give up due to allergies, along with another dog we didn't see. We were told the other dog was more aggressive, and although the shelter had been told they were fine together, he wouldn't let Pico, as is his name, near the dog food, so they separated them.

We all agreed!!!! he was the dog for us, and we waited for Melinda to draw blood and do a fecal, which were fine, and microchip him, and then we ran some other errands around town as we were told it would be another hour or so. They were probably running my driver's license number, as that is the only info I gave them on the adoption application-no vet or personal references were requested.

He was great in the car on the way home-alternating laps on which to rest his head, and didn't vomit. Heheh. That can be traumatic.

Once home, the lab mix came out in full force. Labs are bird retrievers, and he COULD NOT BELIEVE!!!!!! there was a chicken pen, and roosters, AND a goose!!!! Nevermind all the feathers lying about!!! Lucy the goosey was at first afraid, and then as they approached each other, Lucy flapped his great wings, and that scared Pico!!!! So we will have to watch him around the poultry!!!(Lucy goes after the whole herd of goats, so I guess he will "learn" the dog!)

Pico couldn't care less about the goats...the goats were freaked and curious (as goats are), but Pico was not interested.

Then we went in, me with the leash, preparing myself for Pico to launch himself at our poor pitiful helpless kitties. We barely got in the door, and the two senior cats went into attack mode, hissing, spitting, clawing, fur flying...fighting each other...crazy!!!!! It went down so fast, I quickly wedged myself infront of poor Pico who was cowering behind the door, while my ear little Rubes planted herself on the high ground, growling and caterwalling.

Well, we had good intentions on training the poor pup properly, but I got him into the living room on one of the couches and planted myself next to him, one cat near the ceiling, one in the window...and showed the cats that he was fine, our new member....LOL.

Several hours later, Pico is sacked out on the couch with the kids and the cats are slowly sneaking in for a closer look-the more dominant one planting himself in the middle of the room, acting nonchalant...

In the middle of this post I slipped downstairs to check and sat stroking the new pup(he is supposed to be two years, but seems younger-however I have not been around a young dog for a few years, so I might be mistaken. I think he is more like a year.)and I was stunned...he is marked EXACTLY like our Louise. The only dog we had brought out today, a perfect fit(we hope....!!!!)...reminds me of my dream last night....