I didn't think I'd be ready this soon, but about a month after Sky died, I couldn't keep myself from staring longingly at other dogs running with their people. It's been a long time since our last run together. And although it's finally getting lighter in the mornings and I feel much safer in the larger Twin City than I did in my old neighborhood, I've been feeling apprehensive about running in the darkish mornings alone with my pepper spray.
The quiet stillness in the house after Sky was gone was terrible at first. Home alone one Friday night, just me and the cats, the silence just about drove me nuts. Yes, I could have turned on the radio, or played a CD or turned on the idiot box. And yes, I am an off-the-scale introvert and allegedly prefer being alone to anything else. However...
I started perusing the online dating sites, er, I mean petfinder.com and the Humane Society's website, to see what sorts of dogs are out there. I knew pretty much what I was looking for: young but not a puppy, female, not too small, not too big, likes to run, doesn't drool incessantly, no double-coated dogs, can learn to get along with cats, not freaked out by kids or men, protective but not overly so. But I took a couple of online quizzes (cuz after all, the innernet is apparently the source of all knowledge) to make sure that what I thought I was looking for was actually what would suit me. What do you know, my top matches are: Mixed Breed Dog, Pointer, German Shorthair Pointer, Treeing Walker Coonhound, Entlebucher Mountain Dog, Weimaraner, English Setter, Harrier. Hmm... it seems like a sporting breed is what I'm looking for. Having just had a lovely run with an adorable coonhound/Lab mix (he has the best ears ever), I figured that the hounds were not for me. They're more interested in sniffing than running, but they have the advantage of being mellower, I think.
So I started searching for a pointer mix. Given that I'm human (and shallow), I make judgments on sight, so lots of dogs were eliminated for frivolous reasons. Perhaps the list of things I was looking for should be appended to add: cute. So, pointer first, cute second, female third... There weren't as many dogs that fit my criteria as I'd thought. Then there was making a decision between the stop-n-shop versus the adoption process. At the Humane Society it's pretty darn easy to walk in and waltz out with an animal of your choosing. You have to fill out a form, but it's not like they ask for references. Breed-specific rescues, on the other hand, do ask for references. And they check them. And they call your vet. They also tend to know more about the dogs they place because the dogs have been with foster families while awaiting adoption, not in a kennel. This can be harder on the dogs because if they're with their foster families for awhile, they get attached, but still, they're not on death row.
I found a couple of potential dogs. The one that I focused on had all of the qualities I was looking for, plus the rescue had a short video of her. After watching it, I filled out the adoption application, even though I wasn't quite convinced that it was a good idea or that I was doing the right thing.
Her name is Blue. She's some mixture of German Shorthair Pointer and who knows what. Maybe border collie. Maybe Lab. Maybe English Springer Spaniel. Maybe something else. She acts like a pointer and is certainly shaped like one. She's almost 3 years old. She's a mom, too, having had two litters of puppies last year. Her foster mom said that she pulls like crazy on leash and is hyper in general, but I've dealt with that before. Foster mom also said that she takes off after squirrels and bunnies, but I've dealt with that before, too. We brought her to her new home on Saturday. She tried to jump in the trunk when I was putting the dog food in. She laid down on the back seat with Big Boy and didn't make a sound the entire ride home. She thought the yard was interesting, especially the squirrels in the trees. She is afraid of the cats. She'd never had a gentle leader (aka snout harness) on before, so she shook her head a lot when I first put it on. We took off down the street for our first run together and after a couple of blocks she forgot all about the harness on her head and didn't pull a bit. We headed to TODL's house and she ran with us for another four and half miles or so. Blue got to meet Dusty (Blue yipped like someone stepped on her when Dusty tried to sniff her a little too aggressively) and have a bit of a walk together. Then we ran home again. Just over 7 miles and she ran next to me the whole way.
Blue likes to watch the wildlife in the backyard through the windows in the sunroom. She does perimeter checks. She barks at squirrels in the backyard. She also tries to jump up on every piece of furniture in the house, but we're working on that. On her second night, she stayed in her bed the whole night, despite the fact that the scary kitties get to sleep on the big bed with me.
After being in at least three homes over the past six months, she's a little standoffish, but that could also be that squirrels are infinitely more interesting than I am. She's not ready to make a commitment yet, but I'm willing to wait.
