Life with a dog

I like dogs. Growing up we always had one. Looking back I don't think we gave them enough attention, but I suppose that's another blog post. Robin and I got our first dog, Exy, from Robin's parents after we got married and got a place of our own in Waco. She had been a gift to Robin's sister and lived at the house Robin grew up in. I remember telling Robin that I wouldn't want a dog unless it was like Exy so when she became available it was hard to turn down. She was a mellow dog, pretty old but was able to put up with our weekly trips back to Dallas for almost 2 years. She was a great companion and a lot of fun to play with.

We put Exy down in September of 2006 after she had lost control and feeling in her hind legs. I think she was around 12 years old at the time.

From time to time we would kick around the idea of getting another dog. Stella loves dogs and always wants to pet them whenever she has the opportunity, but there were always good reasons to not get one, like our back yard wasn't properly fenced in, Stella wasn't big enough, it would basically stay at home all day, etc. Little by little those conditions vanished and so we started seriously looking. Robin had looked into dog fostering. This is where you keep the dog and do all the day to day up keep and an organization pays for any vet bills, food, etc. After allowing the dog to settle in for two weeks they would bring prospective adopters by and try to make a match. Or we could adopt the dog.

Side note: A point I was not immediately clear on is that if someone else wanted to adopt the dog and so did we, then we would be given the opportunity to keep her ahead of another prospective adopter.

Fostering seem like a good idea because it gave you the opportunity to test drive the dog before you made any commitment and in the meantime you are giving the dog a better life by taking it out of a shelter.

We met with the woman, Katie, who runs the foster program and setup a time to go look for prospective fosters. A few days later we visited a couple shelters and found a boxer/shepherd mix that was really low key and it seemed like a good match. We took her home that same day.

After a little discussion we named her Dolly.

This was mostly setup to a story I hope to finish another time - hopefully soon.