Finding Miss Daisy

Since before I bought my house, I knew I wanted a dog. As a matter of fact, my former roomie and I joked that we had an invisible dog. When we dropped food on the floor we called "Snowball" over to clean up our many messes. If only she was real, she would have had a feast with us messy girls.

Actually one of the things I was looking for when buying my house was a fenced yard, even though I didn't have a dog yet.

And while searching for a dog, I had a specific vision of what I wanted my dog to be. Young, female, spayed, yellow lab mix. I didn't want to buy a puppy from a breeder; I wanted to rescue one from a shelter. I didn't want a puppy, because I don't have the time, patience, or knowledge to care for and train a puppy. I didn't want a male dog, because, well, just because I grew up with female dogs and loved 'em. And I wanted one who was already trained, housebroken, and friendly.

I searched online an Erie's Humane Society, the ANNA Shelter, and Because You Care all summer and fall. Labrador mixes are very common breeds at shelters, but yellow labs are hard to come by. I never saw any all summer.


Then on September 25, I visited the Humane Society and met with a cute, hyper, 2-year old, lab. She was a surrender. The family couldn't find the time to train her and struggled to house break her. She was very sweet and loved to retrieve tennis balls. But she didn't really sit still to be petted. My mom and I went to visit with her again during my lunch hour that next week. My mom thought the dog might have A.D.D. or something since she was so hyper. My mom helped me realize she was not the dog for me.

Then on Saturday, October 23 my mom and I went to the ANNA Shelter on our way downtown to see the Erie Art Museum's new space. I fell in love with a 1-year-old, female, yellow lab. She was a stray they named Utoo (stupid name). She had been at the shelter since September 29. We spent more than an hour with her. But I decided I would like to get things in order before I adopted her. The ANNA Shelter was only going to be open for another 1.5 hours. My mom and I decided to go to the Art Musuem as we originally planned, and I would spend Sunday getting my home ready for Gracie (I renamed her in my head).


On Sunday, I boughts toys, food/water dish, treats, and borrowed a crate from my aunt and uncle. I called early Monday morning to find out if Utoo was still available and left a message. I didn't hear from the shelter all day (its Monday hours are from 5-7pm). But I checked its website and saw that Utoo's pictures had been removed. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no.

I tried to remain optimistic, but I am a realist. There was no reason her photo should have been removed from the site other than the fact that she was adopted. With no call by 5 pm, I decided to just go to the shelter and I took my parents as mental support.

Sure enough, as luck would have it, Utoo had not been adopted for a month, but she was scooped up within 1.5 hour that Saturday after my mom and I left.

Monday night and Tuesday morning I was feeling very defeated.

So my mom and I decided to drive to Ashtubula to get cheered up by the cutest puppies I have ever seen. They were a litter of 10-week-old Samoyed and Golden Retriever mix pups. When we arrived at the Ashtubula County Animal Protective League the entire litter (of eight or nine puppies) had already been spoken for. Which was okay be me, I didn't want to adopt a puppy anyway.

There was one other dog I wanted to see at the ACAPL after scouting its website, but she wasn't in any of the cages. She was in the adoption room. Of course, I drive all the way from Erie to look at the puppies and one other dog and wouldn't you know it, someone arrived right before me. So my mom and I tried to act uninterested, while waiting around for this woman to decide.

The woman didn't fill out an application and left to think about her, which meant I could meet the dog - Heather.

The staff person brought her into the room, and I loved her instantly!

Such a friendly spirit and so cute, Heather (the name of my childhood baby sitter) was a stray. She had a collar but no tags. She was a bit younger than what I originally wanted, but I felt like 6 months was a good age for her to learn commands and forget whatever tragedy may have happened to her.

So on Tuesday, October 26, I filled out my application for Heather. I couldn't take her home that day because she was getting spayed Friday. Officially the cutie became mine on Saturday, October 30 and I renamed her Daisy.

Daisy has lived with me for two weeks and we are having fun bonding and learning how to live together. She is doing great with house training and is picking up commands. She is so curious and is my shadow who follows me around the house. She doesn't like her crate yet, but we are working on it. She has definitely changed the way I live. I hope that we both add joy to each others life for many, many years to come.