MIA in May

Yep, I disappeared. I had a life altering weekend several weeks ago and have been busy being a puppy momma since! That's right, PUPPY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here is the story for my friends who haven't heard. My husband and I LOVE dogs! We have wanted one for years but couldn't get one because of school, then because we were in an apartment that didn't allow them, etc, etc. Since buying our house one of the HUGE topics of conversation has been getting a dog. We were serious too! We commute into Boston everyday for work, so we started researching dog walkers and doggie
daycares. We found a dog walker that was accepting new clients, we're now pretty settled into the house, so we knew the time was right! Our timing was strategic so that we would be able to spend our 4-day Memorial day weekend bonding. So, we went to the local shelter. This is where everything goes horribly wrong!!

I will give you the short version here. They were awful. Well, the 'adoption counselor' was awful anyway. After almost an hour walking around the puppy pens and stopping to play by the gate, we asked to visit in a play room with a puppy and had to talk to the counselor first. Well she started asking us questions and asked who would be home
with the puppy. We told her we both work, but had already contracted a dog walker. She was appalled! Here is our converstion...with mean lady:
You can't leave a puppy home alone for 10 hours a day!!!
Um, we're not, we have a dogwalker.
Well, even so, you can't leave a puppy home for 5 hours a day, you'll never get her housetrained. It will take upwards of 2 years!!
Well, our awesome dogwalker has a puppy program where they stop by 3 times a day.
That must be expensive. You don't want to pay for that.
::thinking to myself...how do you know how much $ I can afford to spend?!::
And you know some people get home after a long day at work and commuting and don't realize the puppy needs to go for a walk and to play....
::thinking to myself....are you telling me I wouldn't walk my dog?!::
No, absolutely no way we can adopt a puppy to you. You need a mature dog that is already house trained.
OK, anything come to mind.
Sure, let's walk around and see who we have.
Then mean lady proceeded to tell us all the reasons none of the adult dogs were a good fit for our schedule and how she wouldn't feel comfortable adopting any of them to us either. In the end, mean lady took all our contact info and said she would let us know when they had a dog that would 'fit our needs' like we're 'special' people or something.

I was in tears when we left the shelter. My husband and I have both had dogs and his last dog was rescued from an abusive home. We understand that shelter dogs often need a little more attention, etc. But this was ridiculous. We couldn't adopt a dog because we work?! When did that become a criteria? I guess she'll curse us the day we have a child/children and ::horrified gasp!:: PUT THEM IN DAYCARE!!!!!!!

We talked to the dogwalker and he was shocked at the way we were treated. He was great and made some suggestions. In the end, we ended up privately purchasing Jasper, a wirehaired fox terrier who has us wrapped around his little paw!
We are totally in love! He is better than an alarm clock at waking us up between 5 and 5:30am to go for his morning walk. So, we are a bit sleep deprived!! We are currently working on exercises to 'help' through the biting puppy phase. But....I'm happy to say his house training is going quite well! For the last 3-4 days we've only had 1-2 accidents per day. On days we work! Not bad!!! Eat that mean shelter lady....two years, come on!

I'm so grateful to have Jasper and how things worked out for us to get him, but I must say I am SO disappointed in the shelter. The counselor was plain rude and talked down to us the entire time. She made me feel like I was an awful person for wanting a dog....like I was certainly going to neglect any dog I got. I don't feel sorry for them anymore. I always thought....oh the poor doggies and no one wants them. Nope. Now I know people want them, but the fanatics running the place are ridiculous about their requirements for owners. They missed out on a great set of doggie parents here!