Princess Shelby

We are the biggest suckers in the world. Show us a puppy, a crying baby, or a commercial with abused kittens, and we will coo, get a treat, or reach for our checkbook, whichever is applicable. See, here's the thing. We were not going to get a dog, we had agreed on that a long, long time ago. We traveled too much, moved too often, and our lives were too crazy to accommodate a pet. But you all know how long that lasted; until we walked into PetSmart on adoption day, and saw Zoe.

Now although our little darling has slowed down considerably, we can tell she gets bored being all by herself. She's torn up plants, dug holes, chewed up clothes hanging on the now defunct clothesline, and in her wilder days, even managed to claw a hole in the wall behind her crate. But, whenever she meets other dogs, she is as happy and as well-behaved as can be. She will play with them, love on them, and fall into an exhausted, but happy sleep without having even so much as looked at our newly planted bushes.

So with us being the big softies that we are, we talked about getting a second dog. But then decided, quite rationally we thought, to not do that to ourselves. Until last Sunday. Obviously, I was not in the most rational mood all weekend, and when I saw a bunch of puppies from the local shelter up for adoption at PetSmart, my heart just melted. There was Lissy, a rambunctious 8-week old lab, and an unnamed 6-month old Spitz-mix that had been dropped off at the shelter the previous day by people who "really did not feel like dealing with a dog anymore now that their baby was on the way". Of course, that did not sit well with me, for various reasons. First, once you get a dog, barring any sort of totally unacceptable canine misconduct, you keep it. Second, if you can't handle a dog, how can you handle a baby? And thirdly, although slightly unrelated, how dare other people be pregnant. So we looked at both dogs, held them, played with them, and told them how pretty they were, and then turned our brains on, and went home, with just one dog.

Husband-dear and I talked, and debated, and slept on it, and came to the conclusion that we really should not get another dog. But then, for a reason I'm still not sure of, yesterday we decided to ask the shelter-volunteer to bring both Lissy and the unnamed pup over for a trial-play with Zoe. We figured it wouldn't hurt to see if it would work out. Because we probably weren't going to get one anyway. Because well, we were smarter than that. And really, when Lissy first came out, and started to like an 8-week old Zoe on speed, we knew that adopting her was not an option. But then the unnamed pup came out, a dog who had spent all the three months with her first family living in their backyard and who did not even recognize her own name.

Zoe loved her. They ran, played, and drank water out of the same bowl. The unnamed pup was quiet, gentle, and learned how to sit in about five minutes, putting our own little princess, who took about a month to grasp that concept, to shame. Needless to say, we now have two crates in our bedroom, and named our new family addition Shelby. Princess Shelby is really not a princess at all. She seems surprised when we pet her, never walks in your way when you've got your hans full, and has yet to have an accident inside the house. Shelby has also figured out that when she sits, she gets rewards, so she spent most of yesterday following me around, sitting down whenever I caught her gaze. And princess Zoe? She's definitely the boss, but cannot get enough of running around with her new playmate.

I know, we're insane for getting another dog, and I promise you, there will be no more new family additions. I think.