And They Call It Puppy Love

A couple of weeks ago, we brought home a twelve-week old terror, oops……..I mean terrier…… puppy.  Our beloved Cinnamon died last spring and for so long, I couldn’t even bear to think of getting another dog. Then all of a sudden, I couldn’t stand NOT having a dog. My preference is rescue dogs so I spent hours perusing the Adopt-a-Pet and Find-a-Pet websites but nothing seemed quite right — until a litter of puppies appeared at a shelter about a hundred miles west of where I live. “Owner Turn In” was the description, which to me might very well have meant, “That darn dog had puppies again!”  We were heading over to the other side of the state to see our granddaughter in a play and I figured the trip back home provided a perfect opportunity to see if the puppies were still available. As we were about to exit the freeway, I started to get cold feet but my husband reassured me. “If we don’t look, how will we know?” The rest, as they say, is history. She will continue to be a challenge for a while yet. Stolen socks, our old and now-disgruntled cat, baby gates in doorways that test my agility, toilet paper pulled off the roll and shredded throughout the bedroom, doggie chew bones hidden inside my winter boots. I wondered if we had made a mistake until I heard my husband say, “Hey, honey” and realized he wasn’t talking to me. I knew then that we had a keeper.