Adopting an Animal

Anyone who knows me knows how much I love my crazy dog. He is a handful and he's stubborn as all heck, but I seriously love him so much. I was staring at him the other day as he lounged in "his" chair and I realized how proud I am of him and of us for adopting him.

I have never adopted an adult animal before. I guess I was always afraid that I would be taking on a problem that someone else couldn't deal with and I really doubted that I would have the patience and love to break bad habits in an adult dog. I was so wrong.

We adopted Reggie when he was two years old. He had been purchased as a puppy (along with his brother) by a young couple who really didn't have the time or desire to train them. They threw them in their backyard and eventually turned them into a shelter when they had a baby. Reggie did not do well at the shelter at all. He cried and cried and cried... the volunteers at the pound found him in his brother's cage constantly (they had no idea how he did that!) and he went absolutely crazy when they tried to put him in a crate. This type of behavior wasn't exactly appealing to people who went to the shelter looking for a pet.

Luckily, he was taken out of the shelter by his breed's local rescue group. They decided to split up Reggie and Hershey into two different rescue centers because they didn't think anyone in their right mind would adopt TWO high energy dogs at once and they needed to teach each of the dogs how to exist without each other. Hershey did better than Reggie did and was adopted after a short amount of time. Reggie ended up in this home for over six months. They worked with him every day on basic commands, but his stubborn attitude and high energy characteristics made him an undesirable pet.

Along came Matt and Amy... :) We fell in love with him the moment we met him. We knew we would face a lot of challenges with him and we certainly have. We had to rearrange our work schedules, secure our fencing, come home several times during the work day to get him out of our annoyed neighbors yard.... I even got a black eye once when he jumped on me and accidentally head butted me in the nose! But honestly, having him in our lives was worth every second of frustration. We had to make changes and saccrifices in our lives, but oh well!! He brings us so much joy! He has such a funny personality, he LOVES to cuddle with mama (that's me!), he plays funny games with us: his favorite is "Where's papa?". Matt will go hide somewhere and then I'll ask him "where's papa???" and Reggie will run around through the entire house looking for him and when he finds him he attacks him with tons of kisses... it's awesome.

I'm sorry the story was so long, I just wanted to tell you the story of Reggie. I am so happy and proud to have him in our family and I got a little overwhelmed with joy the other night when I was looking at him thinking "This is your life. We gave you a chance and I'm so happy that you did. You are the silliest, most spoiled dog I know and I am so thrilled that you have finally found your FOREVER home".

To anyone out there who is considering getting a pet - please, please, please - look into your local shelters and/or breed rescue centers. Puppies are cute, yes indeed, but there are so many awesome dogs out there who need the love and security of a FOREVER home just like Reggie did.